Ashwin strikes twice after India declare on 622/9

For four-and-a-half hours at the SSC ground on an overcast Friday (August 4), it appeared as if the bowlers were only around to help the batsmen inflate their numbers. Then, the tide turned – not so much gradually as dramatically – with the ball fizzing, gripping, turning, jumping, exploding as if possessing a mind of its own.

It wasn’t unexpected, though. Sri Lanka’s spinners, their bodies as tired as their spirits, largely went through the motions on day two of the second Test, hoping for things to happen. India’s spinners, encouraged by the bite off the dry surface and the cushion of a massive total on the board, started to make things happen. Consequently, by the time the dust settled – in all ways imaginable, given how much top surface the ball was disturbing upon contact late in the evening – India had taken a massive step towards its quest for a second successive series win in this island nation.

The game, of course, is only two days old and the denouement is a long way away. But on the evidence of what day two threw up, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja must fancy their chances of running rings around Sri Lanka, which will resume the third morning on 50 for 2 with Kusal Mendis and Dinesh Chandimal, the skipper, in the middle. All this, after India extended its overnight 344 for 3 to a gargantuan 622 for 9 when Virat Kohli applied the closure, a little after the Indians had touched 600 for the third time in their last four Tests.

Everything that the ball did in the first 277 minutes was as if in slow motion. However, as Ashwin and Jadeja came on in the final hour with a hard new ball and creatures of prey hanging close-in, it was an entirely different ballgame. Each delivery was an event, each ball arriving as if it had the batsman’s name on it.

However, it was a reasonably innocuous delivery that brought India its first breakthrough.

Upul Tharanga has made it a habit of being at the receiving end of freak dismissals. Having survived a couple of rippers from Ashwin, he flicked the last ball of the second over in the direction of mid-wicket, expecting to get off the mark. Instead, the ball flew into the midriff of KL Rahul at short-leg, and he clutched it to his body in an excellent show of reflexes before setting off on an Imran Tahir-esque jog as the batsman stood dumbfounded.

Ashwin is an entirely different beast when he tastes blood early. Buoyed by the sixth-ball strike, he instantly fell into great rhythm, flummoxing Dimuth Karunaratne with mesmeric turn. An edge to slip was always on the cards, the only surprise being that it took 45 minutes in coming. Ajinkya Rahane seldom looks a gift horse in the mouth.

While Mendis soldiered on, Chandimal made his intentions clear by slog-sweeping his second ball, from Ashwin, over mid-wicket. Chandimal wasn’t going to die wondering, but in the little time left thereafter, he almost had his head knocked off by Jadeja with a screamer, a grim reminder that this is no shirtfront waiting to throw up a feast of runs. No matter what the opposition might have amassed. The third-wicket pair showed its hand by resorting generously to the sweep shot. India will come well prepared in the morning.

Sri Lanka’s day had begun poorly with Nuwan Pradeep, the lone specialist paceman, rendered ineligible to bowl after having picked up a hamstring injury the previous evening. Up against the home side was the undefeated pair of Cheteshwar Pujara and Rahane, both men seeing the ball like a football. Their stand had already wended its way to 211 and Sri Lanka would have feared the worst, seeing as how both men love to bat on and on, when Karunaratne brought early delight by dismissing Pujara in front, on review, for a fluid 133.

All that served to do was usher Ashwin into the middle. Even as Rahane ground the attack, Ashwin batted with the flair and elegance that makes him such a pleasing spectacle at the middle. As the effect of the roller wore off, the ball began to misbehave more and more, but whatever was happening was so slow that there was enough time for both Rahane and Ashwin to adjust to the deviations. Worryingly for Sri Lanka, though, the ball wasn’t merely turning off the footmarks. It was deviating sharply off the untreaded middle of the pitch, with little puffs of dust adding to the dramatics.

Admittedly, Sri Lanka’s spinners bowled with greater discipline than on day one. Rahane’s patient vigil was ended by an uncharacteristic hoick as he charged down the track to Malinda Pushpakumara, was beaten in the air and off the surface, and stumped by a mile. It brought the debutant left-arm spinner his first Test wicket, off his 133rd delivery of the match.

While both set batsmen had been evicted, the wickets weren’t coming quickly for Sri Lanka. That definitely also had a lot to do with the quality of the Indian batting line-up. Each time the home side sensed an opening, it was emphatically pegged back; Ashwin, Wriddhiman Saha and Jadeja all showcased their increasing value with the bat, with the ball by now clearly turning significantly.

Ashwin produced perhaps the innings of the day, worth a classy 54 by punctuated by some of the most aesthetically pleasing shots, while Saha was busy and cheeky, the sweep a preferred option both against the left-arm spin of Pushpakumara and Herath, and the off-spin of Dilruwan Perera. Hardik Pandya came up with a cameo by which time the onus was on quick runs and not the preservation of wickets, while Jadeja – him with three first-class triple-tons but batting at a lowly No. 9 – opened his broad shoulders to slam the ball a country mile. Each stroke that cascaded off his willow was a blow to Sri Lanka’s aspirations; each wicket that fell to the turning ball only illustrated the magnitude of the task that lay ahead of Sri Lanka’s batsmen.

During the course of his half-century, Ashwin became the third fastest, after Ian Botham (42 Tests), and Kapil Dev and Imran Khan (50) to complete the Test double of 200 wickets and 2000 runs. He isn’t finished yet with either discipline, though the immediate quest will be to add to the stunning returns of 281 wickets already in this, his 51st Test.