The third Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club has tended to be at its capricious best. Fortunes have swung, often wildly, even before one could comprehend the reasons behind it.
This was until it was imparted a semblance of stability by Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma early on Monday. By stumps, India had done well to wrest control. If on Tuesday the match finally rests in India’s hands, it will be the side’s first away series win in eight attempts since West Indies 2011.
At the end of the penultimate day’s play, Sri Lanka chasing a target of 386, finished on 67 for three with Kaushal Silva on 24 and skipper Angelo Mathews on 22. Yet another top-order blow out ensured that the 15 runs that the Sri Lankan openers added in the first innings in Galle are now the highest for the opening wicket across both sides.
Sri Lanka’s position is similar to the one it found itself in at P Sara Oval in the previous Test; resuscitation from which looks improbable. It needs 319 more runs from 98 overs with seven wickets left on the final day. The highest chase here is the 326 it made against Zimbabwe in 1998.
Ishant Sharma breathed fire yet again, bowling an opening spell of 5-1-7-2. The angle across to the left-hander was used to great effect by both him and Umesh Yadav. Ishant first got Upul Tharanga to edge to wicket-keeper Naman Ojha and then Umesh repeated the ritual with Dimuth Karunaratne. Both batsmen were out for ducks and the score read two for two.
Soon it was 21 for three, with Kohli at second slip gobbling up Dinesh Chandimal after K.L. Rahul floundered in his attempt at third slip. A quick 46-run stand between Mathews and Silva might have soothed nerves for now, but the weight of runs, under pressure, has the ability to grow multi-fold.
Early in the morning, Kohli and Rohit were circumspect in their approach, for, the pace duo of Dhammika Prasad and Nuwan Pradeep, with a relatively new ball, was always in with a chance.
But Mathews bowled them for just five overs and instead brought himself on from one end and Rangana Herath from the other. The two frontline quicks seemed spent, and with Mathews, curiously under-bowling himself — only six of the 76 overs — and not much help for the spinners, runs came, not in a flurry but unhindered.
The Indians built their innings brick by brick. Every little partnership pushed Lanka into retreat. Kohli and Rohit added 57 runs. Even as the former, yet again, reached out for the ball almost at the sixth stump line and was caught behind, the latter pulled and drove beautifully. The two fours on the off side to Pradeep were his standout efforts.
The next association between Rohit and Stuart Binny fetched 54 quick runs. Binny, at least initially, edged his way through and Kusal Perera missed a stumping too. But for him and India it was just a means to an end and neither seemed to bother.
In future, when public memory recedes, the 49 runs he collected will alone matter as he continues to try and bolster his identity as a batting all-rounder.
Rohit, though, fell after reaching 50. He was as languid as ever but unfortunately holed out to fine leg trying to pull Prasad. It was a shot that had fetched him runs before but not this time. Then Binny and Naman Ojha, in a chanceless phase, added 42 runs.
The partnership between Amit Mishra and R. Ashwin seemed more like a recce for the duo. Not much was happening for their Sri Lankan spin counter-parts and the two seemed more like doctors trying to diagnose the state of the pitch. The flurry of late cuts the two played suggested they that had found the strip to have eased, particularly with an older ball.
Fifty-five runs were added and it was only ended through a brilliant run out effected by Kaushal Silva at short leg to get rid of Mishra for a useful 39. Ashwin helped himself to a graceful half-century.
