International cricket tours are increasingly whistle-stop in nature. The time available for assessment and recovery is all the more short. Yet, India, after a dispiriting loss in Galle, registered an emphatic 278-run win here on Monday. With the three-match India-Sri Lanka Test series now tantalisingly poised at 1-1, it’s time to dwell on a couple of points.
1. Pacers and spinners complementing each other
“In England, Australia and New Zealand, the spinners’ success follows that of a good pace attack,” R. Ashwin had said. “It’s a question of working together.” If ever the statement needed a leg to prop it up, the performance here at the P Sara Oval was it.
The spinners took 14 of the 20 wickets India claimed in the second Test. But with due credit to them, it wouldn’t be unfair to say that a part of their success has come after they rode piggyback on the seamers.
It can be seen in the way Ishant Sharma bowled from one end on the final morning in Colombo (4-2-9-1) while Ashwin wreaked havoc from the other; in the way the former bowled in the first session on day three when 22 balls to Lahiru Thirimanne came at the cost of just three runs; the way he came back the same afternoon to prise out both Thirimanne and Dinesh Chandimal in a six-over spell; the way Umesh Yadav got Dimuth Karunaratne off the first ball he bowled in the first innings and Angelo Mathews off the first delivery on the final day.
“The session we had in the first innings where we literally squeezed them was one of the best bowling efforts I’ve been part of with this Indian team,” Kohli said after the win.
“In the past two years, that was easily our best bowling effort as a group. I’m very happy to see the bowlers playing their roles.
“They are not getting desperate for wickets. In Ishant’s spell (final day) he was in no rush to start taking wickets. He was just helping Ashwin to create more pressure by bowling those maidens.”
In the past, India’s bowlers, when the going got tough, have seemed resigned to their fate.
In this series, but for the one occasion when Chandimal mounted his onslaught, it hasn’t been the case.
An unspoken act that’s worthy of applause.
2. Rohit Sharma
At least for now, the No. 3 debate has been shut out. Ajinkya Rahane’s exploits at No. 3 and Rohit Sharma’s moderate success at No. 5 in the Colombo Test have now given an impression that in Rohit, the team was looking at a square peg for a round hole.
But the whole affair betrays a certain inconsistency. Rohit was termed an “impact player” who could be the difference between winning and losing. “He has done well in Australia in that position,” Kohli had said. “We want to give him that game time. We want to give him ample opportunities.”
Even after the loss in Galle, Kohli had said, “the reason why Rohit started getting more chances again was because Cheteshwar [Pujara] was going through a phase where he wasn’t getting too many runs. Rohit has got three-four chances at No. 3. The idea has been to persist with him.”
The change in Colombo might well have been tactical, and as Kohli said after the Test, “You need to figure out who’s playing well at that point, and who can handle a particular position well.” But can a system be seen to bear fruition when impatience creeps in at the first sign of trouble?
In each of the four innings there was an early wicket. However much it was undesirable, the opportunity was tailor-made for an aspiring No. 3 to stake a claim.
“We can plan certain things and prepare ourselves. To do that over a period of three Tests is very exciting,” Kohli had said prior to the start of the series. In that light, wouldn’t it have been fair to allow Rohit more chances — either to prosper or fail?
