By Jonny Saunders BBC Sport in Kandy

Clive Lloyd has been a busy man in the Kandy Test match

You'll probably remember from chemistry lessons at school - the explosive results you get when you mix sodium and water.

That hissing violence is very similar to the results that you get if you mix the England cricket team with the Sri Lankan hill capital of Kandy.

When England won here two-and-three-quarter years ago all hell broke loose in the match, with the ICC's referee arguably the busiest man in the stadium.

He was giving out fines and suspended sentences as if they were going out of fashion.

Fast forward to today and its match referee Clive Lloyd who is once again the centre of attention.

Yesterday he was sufficiently concerned by the conduct of the players that he called on the two coaches this morning - Duncan Fletcher and John Dyson - to warn their players about their behaviour.

The warnings clearly did not have too much of an effect because today has been all about the alleged altercation between Nasser Hussain and Mutiah Muralitharan.

In the end it turned out to be one man's word against another's and Hussain was cleared of any wrongdoing.

It's a tranquil place but it's a different story out in the middle

What I think most people will find astonishing is that following the warning from Lloyd this morning neither side seemed to take a blind bit of notice to him and carried on regardless.

That abuse of authority is surely far worse than any verbal jousting there may or may not have been between the players on the pitch and has to be looked into.

Otherwise, what is the point in having a match referee?

On the pitch it was Sri Lanka's day and they are now in a position where they can take advantage of their good batting and bowling.

If they can split up Collingwood and Thorpe early tomorrow morning they will fancy their chances of finishing of England's first innings pretty quickly.

They can then bat again and set England an impossible total to chase in the fourth innings.

From an English point of view the Surrey left-hander and Durham right-hander must show the same sort of poise they showed when they came together at the potentially tricky total of 119-4.

What with ants invading the pitch before play started, the alleged swearing incident and some gripping cricket it was a very busy day both and off the pitch.