NEW DELHI: Two unlikely heroes stepped up for Australia as they handed hosts Sri Lanka their biggest ever test defeat, and coach Andrew McDonald was impressed by both after a dominant start to the two-test series.

Left-arm spinner Matthew Kuhnemann fractured his thumb last month and McDonald had assumed the bowler would not be available for the match, but the 28-year-old took nine wickets. McDonald also praised opening batter Usman Khawaja who, at 38, scored a personal-highest 232 in the first innings, setting the stage for the visitors’ mammoth victory by an innings and 242 runs.

“I thought he was gone,” McDonald said of Kuhnemann. “But as it progressed and got closer to the test match, he was pretty much a lock three days out. Not sure where we would have ended up, but there was plenty of conversations… in terms of selecting spinners. “But Matt solved a lot of those dilemmas, and produced an outstanding performance.”