''If we can get a good partnership in the morning session, the game is on," an upbeat Herath said.
''We need to play our brand of cricket and I'm sure Angie and Chandimal will do that, referring to a positive mindset.
New Zealand won't get anything on a platter.
''It's reasonably flat so we're going to have to work hard for our wickets," centurymaker Tom Latham said.
''There is a big of uneven bounce and hopefully we can extract that."
It was an immensely frustrating day, with three breaks for rain. Just 67.5 overs were possible, although that was probably more than might have been expected from the rain radar.
It may have hastened Brendon McCullum's declaration, as soon as the lead passed 400, when he might have had 450 in mind.
Then again, there's only been four successful 400-plus run chases in test history. The odds were firmly in his favour.
Sri Lanka's mindset at the beginning of their fourth innings was to make a sure start, bat sensibly without adopting a defence-only mindset, see where they were at stumps and reassess prospects for a final day push.
There are reasons there have been so few winning chases for targets this size, most notably the state of the pitches, which generally wear to support the bowlers. University Oval has a reputation for staying in good nick.
In the last test at the ground, the West Indies, following on, batted 10 and a half hours to save the match.
For all it was a shortened day, odd and interesting things happened.
First off, the DRS system didn't work when Latham was on 97. He swept at Herath, Sri Lanka referred the not out decision but third man Paul Reiffel could not adjudicate because a key piece of the apparatus was not available to him.
He wasn't out anyway, just as Doug Bracewell was out the day before but his referral didn't work for a similar reason.
Then Brendon McCullum stepped down and slapped his first ball back over the bowler's head for six. His second, five balls later, gave him 100 in tests, equal with former Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist's record, and he promptly declared.
A wild stab here: McCullum will have the record alone before the summer is out.
Latham's century, his third overall but first in a second innings -- and first at home -- anchored New Zealand's innings. He is rapidly becoming one of the team's more important figures.
Wicketkeeper BJ Watling already is. Three more catches yesterday gave him nine for the match, equalling the New Zealand record he shares with McCullum.
Three more today and he's got the world record. Don't bet against it; all 13 Sri Lankan dismissals in the test have been caught, 12 in the small arc from keeper to second slip.
Most wicketkeeping dismissals in a test
11:
Jack Russell (England) v South Africa, Johannesburg, 1995
AB de Villiers (South Africa) v Pakistan, Johannesburg 2013
10:
Bob Taylor (England) v India, Mumbai 1980
Adam Gilchrist (Australia) v New Zealand, Hamilton 2000
9:
BJ Watling (NZ) v India, Auckland, 2014
Watling v Sri Lanka, Dunedin, 2015*
Brendon McCullum (NZ) v Pakistan, Napier 2009
Plus 22 other instances
Asterisk denotes test still in progress
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