Muttiah Muralitharan and Mahela Jayawardene celebrate

Muttiah Muralitharan took four wickets in his first 15 overs to leave India in desperate trouble at stumps on day three of the first Test in Colombo.

India closed on 159-6 in reply to the hosts' 600-6 declared - a score that included four individual centuries.

Muralitharan picked up the wickets of Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Dinesh Karthik.

Debutant Ajantha Mendis took his first Test wicket by completely bamboozling Rahul Dravid with a "carrom" ball.

The delivery, rather than being conventionally spun using wrist and/or fingers is flicked between thumb, forefinger and middle finger.

Upon landing, the ball can spin in any direction - and in this instance Dravid was defeated by a ball that pitched on leg-stump and hit off-stump.

Indian opener Virender Sehwag (25) was caught at deep square leg off seamer Nuwan Kulasekara when India began their reply, but they still went to tea at a decent 72-1.

However, five wickets fell in the final session.

Mendis began the collapse by bowling Rahul Dravid for 14.

Gambhir, the top-scorer with 39, was next to go, driving in the air against Muralitharan to be caught at short mid-wicket by Thilan Samaraweera.

Tendulkar, who came to the crease needing 172 runs to take the world record for the most Test runs from former West Indies captain Brian Lara, misread a straight ball from the great spinner and was bowled off the inside edge.

At least four of the batsmen got out to shots that were not the greatest and that put us under pressure Gary Kirsten, India coach

Ganguly tried to hit Muralitharan across the line but top-edged his sweep and was caught in the deep by Kulasekara.

At stumps VVVS Laxman was batting on 19 with his captain Anil Kumble on one.

Earlier, Tillakaratne Dilshan made the most of his reprieve under cricket's new laws to hit an unbeaten 125 and become the fourth batsman to score a century in Sri Lanka's innings - equalling the national Test record.

Dilshan had scored just one run on Thursday when he became the world's first batsman to benefit from cricket's new experimental law that allows a player to challenge an umpiring decision.

He helped add 178 runs to the overnight 422-4 before the declaration finally came.

India coach Gary Kirsten said: "Everyone has to be disappointed with the position we are in. We have to accept responsibility. We have not had a single good session.

"We now have to bat extremely well from here to save the game.

"Murali is an experienced bowler and knew exactly what to do. At the same time our batsmen also did not play the right shots. At least four of them got out to shots that were not the greatest and that put us under pressure."