Yet another day which started brightly, yet another day which ended in gloom; yet another batting collapse to chronicle and yet another tale of the tail making a fist of it to narrate.
In what was a manic third day’s play in the final Test here at the Sinhalese Sports Club, 15 wickets fell for 242 runs in 65.1 overs.
So much so that both teams have now managed to take out of the equation all the 75 overs lost on day one owing to rain.
At stumps, when rain ended play, India was 21 for three in its second innings — a lead of 132 runs. With India’s last recognised batting pair at the crease — Virat Kohli (one) and Rohit Sharma (14) — the Test remains in the balance and the fourth day’s first hour will decide which way it swings.
Early on Sunday, India’s first innings folded up for 312 — an addition of 20 runs to the overnight score for the loss of two wickets.
Cheteshwar Pujara (145 n.o., 289b, 14x4) became the fourth Indian to carry his bat after Sunil Gavaskar (127, Faisalabad, 1983), Virender Sehwag (201, Galle, 2008) and Rahul Dravid (146, The Oval, 2011).
India then reduced Sri Lanka to 47 for six to leave it at the edge of the mountain. Perhaps it expected the hosts to roll down themselves, but instead, saw their last four add 154 runs, clutching on to the last available straw, and limit the first innings deficit to 111 runs.
Kusal Perera (55, 56b, 9x4) — who was dropped by K.L. Rahul at second slip off Umesh Yadav with the batsman on nine and the team on 60 — and Rangana Herath (49, 84 8x4) put on 79 runs for the eighth wicket to fashion the rescue act. Ishant Sharma finally added wickets to his otherwise impressive showing thus far in the series by taking five for 54, his seventh five-wicket haul.
If anything, the proceedings showed how ill-equipped today’s batsmen are when the conditions are titled in favour of bowlers. And it brightened the halo around Pujara’s unbeaten ton in the first essay.
True, not much can be done when the ball seams around like it did and a bowler like Dhammika Prasad bowls a delivery like the one he did to Pujara in the second innings — shaping to come in, but squaring him up to leave the stumps rattled.
But both Rahul (2) and Ajinkya Rahane (4) repeated their mistakes from the first innings as Prasad and Nuwan Pradeep shot out the Indian top-order again.
Prasad played with a neck injury and a taped left hand, which even forced him to retire hurt for a while, and Pujara’s wicket was the fourth time he has taken a wicket off his first over in this series. From the other end Pradeep accounted for Rahul and Rahane.
The former pre-meditated a leave for the second time in the Test, failed to cover his stumps and was bowled and the latter — standing outside the crease to negate the swing — fell leg-before to an incoming delivery.
Caught fending Four of the top six in the Lankan line-up were caught fending outside the off-stump. Upul Tharanga — in spite of being repeatedly beaten by Ishant, and even after having a catch dropped by Rahul — Dimuth Karunaratne, Angelo Mathews and Lahiru Thirimanne all chased deliveries and edged behind.
Perera, Dinesh Chandimal and Herath were the only ones to provide thrilling defiance. Chandimal looked excellent, cutting and driving with aplomb, in a brief 23-run innings studded with five fours.
Then Perera made a counter-attacking half-century. Ishant, unfairly, called it “slogging”.
The short-arm pulls, which have ended up in Perera being likened to Sanath Jayasuriya, a straight drive which bisected the long-on and long-off, a sweep and reverse sweep each to the boundary stand as stark evidence against the claim.
Herath’s innings was more sedate and much less about bravado; the only sign of the latter was when he looked Ishant in the eye, their difference in heights notwithstanding.
