Vaas celebrates the dismissal of Dwayne Smith on day three

West Indies lead Sri Lanka by just 117 runs after being reduced to 59-6 in their second innings after day three of the first Test in Colombo.

After the morning session had been lost because of overnight rain Chaminda Vaas dismissed Narsingh Deonarine for seven and Dwayne Smith for a duck, both lbw.

The tourists made painful progress as Shivnarine Chanderpaul dug in.

But the Windies skipper pushed for runs after Denesh Ramdin's departure and before bad light truncated play.

He hit one big six off Sanath Jayasuriya, but accepted an offer from the umpires to come off when the skies darkened again.

Ramdin had hit one boundary before playing back to Muralitharan and being hit in front of off-stump - the fifth man in the innings to fall foul of the lbw rule.

Jayasuriya, who may need to correct his first innings failure with the bat if Sri Lanka are to win, said: "We now have a good chance if we can get rid of Chanderpaul early tomorrow and then bat positively.

"Chaminda is bowling well and Murali is finding his rhythm so we are all positive and are planning to come back in the morning and bowl in the right areas."

Sri Lanka's wicket-keeper and number three batsman Kumar Sangakkara suffered a badly bruised wrist after being hit by a short delivery from Jermaine Lawson on day two but he is expected to bat again.