Preciously talented Ashley Chandrasinghe is the talk of the cricket world after notching a memorable ton on debut for Victoria, but Tasmania's batters fought back to leave the Sheffield Shield clash at Blundstone Arena delicately poised at the halfway mark.
Opener Tim Ward's unbeaten 76 helped the Tigers advance to 2-187 at stumps on day two, trimming their deficit to 164 after Victoria declared early in Sunday's middle session at 7-351.
Ward and Caleb Jewell (53) looked largely untroubled in putting on 118 for the first wicket either side of tea.
It took a moment of batting misjudgement for the visitors to finally strike when Jewell was bowled by Cameron McClure, shouldering arms to a straight in-ducker.
Ward and Jake Doran then added a further 68 for the second wicket before their union ended shortly before stumps when spinner Matt Short got one through Doran's forward defensive gate.
The star of the day was Victorian No.3 Chandrasinghe, who compiled a composed, classy unbeaten 107 off 319 balls on debut.
The Tigers' quality seam attack had no answers for the patient 20-year-old, who never looked ruffled and rightly has been spoken about as a future Test star.
"To make my debut and get a few runs ... great start, I couldn't really ask for anything more," said Chandrasinge, who grew up idolising legendary left-handers Mike Hussey and Kumar Sangakkara, who amassed 57 Test centuries between them.
"They bowled pretty well to me but I was lucky enough to stick at it and a few things went my way.
"Day one it was seaming around quite a bit and I thought they bowled pretty well.
"It's obviously flattened out nicely so we've got to bowl well tomorrow and toil hard."
Chandrasinghe started cautiously on the first day in union with captain Peter Handscomb before working his way through the gears on day two.
Handscomb scored 95 on day one, giving him 518 runs for the season at 172.66 and further pressing his claims for an international recall.
Veteran Peter Siddle (3-61 off 30 overs) was the pick of the home side's bowlers.
"This afternoon and this evening, the boys (batters) stuck at it well and put us in a pretty good position," Siddle said.
"It was tough going this morning but I thought we chipped away with the ball.
"At the minute, it's a pretty nice wicket - (we'll) lock in (with the bat) tomorrow morning, get some more overs into their bowlers and see where we can go from there."