Sri Lanka stumbles after India amasses 600

The tempo was once again frenetic, but the second day of the first Test didn’t have any great rhythm. Sri Lanka and India traded punches on slightly more level terms than on the first day, but there was no doubt which team was holding all the aces at stumps on Thursday at the Galle International Stadium.

Nuwan Pradeep and Upul Tharanga were the standout performers for the home side, the former with his maiden five-for in his 25th Test and the latter with a fluent half-century replete with sparkling strokeplay through the off-side. India, on the other hand, relied on a string of more than passable performances to tighten its grip, Abhinav Mukund’s brilliance in the field earning it two late wickets that put the icing on the cake.

India would have looked to build significantly on its overnight tally of 399 for 3 when it resumed through the well-set fourth-wicket pair of Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane. However, both of them were dismissed inside the first hour as Sri Lanka pulled up its socks after a poor day out on Wednesday. It was left to R Ashwin, unbelievably easy on the eye, and Hardik Pandya, muscular and beefy on debut, to validate the depth in the batting as India pulled away to post an even 600.

Pradeep’s industry, on view for the entire duration of the first day, was finally backed up by the support cast of Lahiru Kumara and Rangana Herath. While that meant Sri Lanka appeared a lot more incisive on a surface gradually beginning to play slow tricks, the inability to consistently string together pressure-building overs ensured that around the loss of wickets, India was able to score at a relatively fair clip. Pradeep’s final returns of 6 for 132 were totally deserved, just reward for ploughing a lone furrow on the first day and then for continuing to persevere despite the burgeoning scoreboard pressure on the second.

Sri Lanka was making a fist of it at 125 for 3 when Mukund’s reflexes and sharp thinking ran Tharanga out. A quarter of an hour later, he flew to his right, also at silly-point, to pluck a catch out of thin air and send Niroshan Dickwella packing, reducing Sri Lanka to an anaemic 154 for 5 at the end of another extended day.

Scoreboard pressure must have been something Sri Lanka would have been mindful of when it started its reply a batsman short, and in the unsettling knowledge that Asela Gunaratne, who broke his left thumb on the first morning, was out for eight weeks. Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav worked up good pace and got the ball to both climb and nip around, and it didn’t take long before India drew first blood. Umesh, the lead paceman in Shami’s injury-enforced absence last season, produced a beautiful inswinger that forced Dimuth Karunaratne to play down the wrong line and trap him palpably in front.

Tharanga was sucked into a play-and-miss routine, but unfazed by what was happening around him, he played some outstanding strokes through the off-side, off both front foot and back and largely against Umesh, whose lengths were extremely inconsistent. Danushka Gunathilaka, on debut, began with two wonderful back foot punches off Shami but then withdrew into his shell, his outside edge always too close to the ball against the quicker bowlers for Sri Lanka’s comfort.

Virat Kohli brought Ashwin on in the eighth over and the offspinner immediately started to make things happen. On many other days, Ashwin will bowl far worse and have a bushel of wickets to show; this time around, with very little luck to speak of, he put Tharanga and Gunathilaka through the wringer, like he was to Angelo Mathews later in the innings, but the wickets just wouldn’t come.

They did, however, for Shami, who snaffled two in four deliveries to rock the Sri Lankans. Brought back for a second spell from the Fort End, he lured Gunathilaka into flashing outside off, then produced a lifter that jagged away a touch to catch Kusal Mendis’s outside edge. Both offerings were pouched comfortably by Shikhar Dhawan at first slip and Sri Lanka had gone from 68 for 1 to 68 for 3 in no time.

Mathews, for some reason donning a cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof persona, linked up with Tharanga, aware that by now, the odd ball was stopping, the less than odd ball was spitting, gripping and turning. Tharanga was forced to revisit his approach after the twin blows but remained positive, while Mathews rode his luck to see off the quicks.

Ravindra Jadeja was pressed into service in the 27th over, and together, he and Ashwin pushed Sri Lanka into a corner. Edges were procured but didn’t go to hand, the ball spun sharply across the outside edge several times and a wicket appeared imminent. When it did come, though, it was through a sharp piece of fielding at silly-point by Abhinav, whose quick reflexes caught Tharanga short of his crease on account of a bouncing bat. Then came the screamer to evict Dickwella and round off another satisfying outing for the visiting side.

The morning was mostly about Pradeep, Ashwin and Pandya, with Kumara not too far behind. Pradeep produced a fine away-going delivery to end Pujara’s six-and-a-half-hour vigil at 153 – he added only nine to his overnight tally – and Kumara, brought on belatedly, accounted for Ajinkya Rahane to a loose drive gobbled up by first slip. But if Sri Lanka thought it was on to a good thing, it was immediately brought crashing back to earth by the stunning grace at the batting crease of Ashwin.

Using his reach and wondrous timing to sensational effect, Ashwin caressed the ball to boundaries on the off-side and on with a twirl of the wrists, no more. The runs came at a furious pace until Pradeep defeated Ashwin on the pull – Sri Lanka used the short ball generously – and elicited a glove through to the ‘keeper for his maiden Test five-for.

India wasn't in a hole, but at 517 for 8, it seemed to have left itself a few short when Pandya and Shami bailed them out. Put down on four by Karunaratne at slip, Pandya took a shine to Sri Lanka’s short-ball tactics by pulling brutally to and over the leg-side fence time after time, while Shami struck the ball cleanly and beautifully during the ninth-wicket stand that raised 62 runs, and took the game well beyond Sri Lanka’s reach.