Mendis, Karunaratne lead Sri Lanka fightback
They would once say of India that overseas, it should play its second innings first, such used to be the disparity between its performances in the two innings. They will say that of Sri Lanka now, following a day of two seriously contrasting halves at the SSC ground on Saturday (August 5).
The first part was marked by an inexplicably desperate propensity for self-destruction and a pre-meditation when it came to the sweep that bordered on obsession. The second was driven by positivity married beautifully with commonsense and a little slice of luck that often accompanies the brave but not the foolhardy.
Dimuth Karunaratne, fast gaining the reputation of a second-innings specialist, and Kusal Mendis, an equal mix of the orthodox and the cheeky, emphatically pushed a game that could so easily have finished inside three days to the fourth, giving Sri Lanka a glimmer of hope when all seemed lost after its abject capitulation in the first innings. Sri Lanka’s first-session implosion for 183 had left it trailing by 439 runs. By stumps on day three of the second Test, however, Karunaratne and Mendis had restored some pride, steering their side to 209 for 2. Sri Lanka still needs 230 to avoid an innings defeat but it could at least walk off with its heads held high.
Hardik Pandya provided the late twist to a gripping day’s play by having Mendis well caught by a sprawling Wriddhiman Saha off inside-edge and glove with no more than 20 minutes remaining. It was a massive blow in the context of entertainment of the preceding two and half hours that heralded a second-wicket stand of 191; India will breathe a little easier now.
The gasps of excitement and the thrill of anticipation that characterised the morning session when the ball slipped around and past the outside and inside edges of the bat made way for claps of appreciation, especially when Mendis bludgeoned his way to a third Test hundred. He had lasted only 23 minutes in the morning in the first innings, a leading edge to mid-on sending him packing. In one of those strangely eerie coincidences, it was at mid-on that he was put down, by Shikhar Dhawan, when on one in the second innings. That was in the eighth over of the innings, and the fourth from R Ashwin, the first-innings hero with 5 for 69. Chastened by that reprieve and determined to make the most of his second chance, Mendis made India pay with an authoritative, majestic compilation.
Karunaratne had shown the way by using his feet to Ashwin early on, unaffected by the third-over dismissal of Upul Tharanga by Umesh Yadav, bowled through the gate trying to drive on the up. There was one ungainly reverse-sweep that lobbed over the slips, immediately after which Karunaratne readjusted his focus and stuck to playing down the ground. It was a lesson not lost on Mendis, who had tried to sweep everything out of sight in the first innings, with mixed success.
As Karunaratne and Mendis grew in confidence and stature, the demons that seemed to have made the surface their home in the morning rapidly disappeared. The gradual slowing of the surface helped the batsmen make late adjustments when the ball bounced alarmingly or turned appreciably, but as the hardness went away, India sweated without much success. Virat Kohli was handicapped by the constant plunder of runs – Ravindra Jadeja, his primary run-choker, went at 5.5 in his first 13 overs – as the in-out fields didn’t necessarily help. Singles were taken when on offer and especially with Karunaratne on strike, while Mendis split the boundary riders on the on-side once he was confident enough to play the sweep repeatedly during the second half of the innings.
India looked a little unprepared for the resistance, even if it will tell you otherwise. Its tetchiness manifested itself in repeated requests to change the ball, but even when it did succeed in that endeavour, the replacement cherry brought it no luck. As its lengths suffered, there were plenty of strokes off the back foot on both sides of the pitch; stumps couldn’t have come sooner for Kohli and his troops. Though it will have been lifted by the late Mendis success, it must regroup and come back stronger.
Sri Lanka had had the whole of Friday night to regroup after conceding 622 and then being reduced to 50 for 2, but there was no indication that it had done its homework before hitting the bed. Mendis could have been dismissed in the first over itself, Jadeja getting the ball to climb and turn substantially to catch the outside edge that flew between slip and gully.
It wasn’t until the 25th ball of the day that the sweep was first attempted, and it spelt instant disaster as Chandimal unerringly picked out Pandya, positioned strangely some eight yards to the right of the square-leg umpire. In the next over, Umesh elicited the leading edge from Mendis as the ball shaped away a touch to defeat the flick, Kohli completing a good catch running backwards from mid-on.
The overnight batsmen having gone inside the first half-hour, Sri Lanka continued to go hard at the bowling. Angelo Mathews, put down on nought by Kohli at gully off Jadeja, brought out the paddle and the full sweep while Niroshan Dickwella seemed intent on playing three sweeps to every ball, no matter where it pitched and what it did. It didn’t make for edifying viewing, though the risk-filled approach did bring 53 for the fifth wicket in just 52 deliveries.
Ashwin, not brought on till the 12th over the day, struck with his 12th delivery, Mathews brilliantly caught low and left-handed at full stretch by Cheteshwar Pujara at leg-slip. Jadeja curled one past Dhananjaya de Silva to consign him to a golden duck while Dickwella best summed up Sri Lanka’s approach to Mohammed Shami’s first ball of the day, an hour and a half into the session.
Drifting outside his off-stump, he went down on his knees to play the paddle that he only managed to deflect on to his stumps. Shami cleaned up Rangana Herath in the same over while Ashwin found more reward for another wonderful display by defeating Dilruwan Perera’s cover-drive with a beautiful off-break that snaked through the gate.
For some reason, Sri Lanka then sent out Nuwan Pradeep, who has a grade 1 hamstring tear, and Ashwin accepted the invitation gleefully to complete his 26th five-for in Test cricket. At that stage, Sri Lanka looked out for the count. Until Karunaratne and Mendis decided to delay, if not spoil, India’s party.
