Muttiah Muralitharan shattered India's star-studded top order with four wickets that put Sri Lanka firmly in command of the first test.

India closed the third day's play at 159-6 in reply to the hosts' 600-6 declared — a score that included a record-equaling four centuries. India needs a further 241 runs to avoid the follow on, with just four low order wickets in hand.

Muralitharan (4-38) picked up the wickets of opener Gautam Gambhir (39), Sachin Tendulkar (27), Sourav Ganguly (23) and Dinesh Karthik.

Opener Virender Sehwag (25) was the first man out after a typically hard-hitting innings that had one too many aggressive shots, as he was caught at deep square leg off seamer Kulasekara. India went to tea at a decent 72-1, but five wickets fell in the final session to put the tourists in dire straits.

Spinner Ajantha Mendis began the collapse and marked his test debut by bowling Rahul Dravid for 14. The ball pitched on the line of the right-hander's leg stump and turned to brush the off stump.

Gambhir 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.

Ganguly tried to hit Muralitharan across the line but top-edged his sweep and was caught in the deep by Nuwan Kulasekara. At stumps V.V.S Laxman was unbeaten on 19 with his captain Anil Kumble on 1 not out.

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

Dilshan had scored just one run 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 was initially given out caught behind, but after challenging that decision it was referred to the third umpire, who ruled there was no contact between bat and ball.

Captain Mahela Jayawardene (136), Malinda Warnapura (115) and Samaraweera (127) — also scored centuries.

Sri Lanka had twice before had four centurions in an innings, both at Colombo: against India in 2001 and Bangladesh in 2007.

The overall test record is five, set by Australia against the West Indies at Kingston in 1955 and Pakistan against Bangladesh at Multan in 2001.

Under the new trial laws, being debuted in this test, each side is allowed three challenges to umpiring decisions per innings, with that number remaining intact if a challenge is upheld.