Sri Lanka 140 for 3 trail India 393 by 253 runs
The second day of the P Sara Test was almost a coming-of-age day of Test cricket for Virat Kohli's India. They didn't score hundreds of runs, they didn't take tens of wickets, but they were persistent both with bat and the ball. When the runs didn't come easily, their last four wickets ground out 74 to deny Sri Lanka a clear advantage. When the wickets didn't come as readily as in the first Test, they refused to bowl loose balls or release the pressure, biding their time by just pegging away.
At the end of the second day, India had taken three Sri Lanka wickets, led by 253, and knew the hosts will have to bat last on a surface where the odd ball began to behave alarmingly. What's more, Kohli's gut selection, Stuart Binny, who failed with the bat, did a useful job with the ball, holding one end up and returning figures of 11-3-24-0 while coming heartbreakingly close to taking a wicket.
It was a day of attritional Test cricket. The game moved largely slowly but never flatly. There was just enough help on the pitch to keep the bowlers from getting disheartened, and enough resolve from the batsmen to keep the persistent bowlers at bay. India, enjoying some luck when they batted in the first session, dug in harder and for longer than Sri Lanka to get their noses ahead. In between, India found time for a ceasefire of sorts to welcome Kumar Sangakkara, playing his last Test, to the crease with a guard of honour. Sangakkara was made to fight harder than he is used to for his 32 off 87 before he fell to R Ashwin for the third time in the series.
While Sri Lanka will be worried wondering how to replace Sangakkara, a man replacing an Indian legend found another small step in Test cricket. Wriddhiman Saha enjoyed the kind of luck Dinesh Chandimal did while taking the Galle Test away from India, but he was more sedate and old-fashioned in scoring his second half-century this series to keep Sri Lanka in the field for more than a session. Rangana Herath started the most frenetic spell of the day by taking out India's last two wickets within seven runs of each other. Umesh Yadav, who had bowled his last 304 legal deliveries for just one wicket and was making a comeback, bowled a perfect outswinger first ball to send back Dimuth Karunaratne but it was back to being hard work for both sides then on.
Just like it had been in the morning. On a hot day Dhammika Prasad and Angelo Mathews refused to offer any freebies. Ashwin fell early to a loose shot to Mathews during a spell when only two scoring shots were played in 28 minutes, and only one boundary hit in 57 balls. Saha and Amit Mishra enjoyed all the luck - ball hitting the off stump without removing the bail, ordinary pictures reprieving Saha, what seemed like a catch at the wicket not given, edges falling short of or flying over fielders - but batted with caution to add 46 for the eighth wicket. The last three wickets fell for 26, making it 74 added for four wickets in a little over a session.
It was an important effort for Saha, who is expected to be the leader of India's reshuffled Nos 6, 7 and 8 in the absence of a sixth specialist batsman. It used to be three out of MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ashwin, but Dhoni has now retired, and Jadeja and Bhuvneshwar don't enjoy Kohli's confidence as much as they did Dhoni's. Be that as it may, persisting with just five specialist batsmen has put Saha's batting under the microscope a bit, and he could have easily invited more scrutiny if he hadn't enjoyed good fortune.
Similar good fortune accompanied the diminutive Kaushal Silva to the wicket. After the early wicket, he periscoped Ishant Sharma to the fine-leg boundary when on 6, and when he edged Binny through, it turned out the bowler had overstepped. Sangakkara too survived a really tough chance at slip when an edge flew off his forceful shot to Ajinkya Rahane off the bowling of Ashwin. That was just before tea when both the batsmen, who added 74 for the second wicket, were tested thoroughly by spells from Ashwin and Binny that read 5-1-11-0 and 6-2-17-0.
Ashwin continued testing the batsmen after the break as Kohli gave him in-and-out fields to work with. The edge from Sangakkara duly arrived when he finally landed the ball in the perfect in-between spot, not a half-volley nor short enough to go back, and Rahane took a beauty at slip. Against Silva and Lahiru Thirimanne - now batting in a third different position in three innings this series - Kohli persisted with the in-and-out fields, keeping the catching men in should there be a false stroke but also denying them boundaries on a hot day.
If it was Ashwin and Yadav just after tea, Mishra and Binny continued to keep the pressure on. There was a spell of play when no boundary was hit in 113 balls. During that period, only 36 runs came, and Silva chose to sweep against the sharp turn of Mishra, and failed to reach the pitch of the ball, giving short fine leg an easy chance.
Binny and the two spinners had kept the two big fast bowlers fresh, and Kohli has said in the past he wants a big effort from his fast bowlers when he calls on them in the final session of a long hot day. Now was the time to see how Yadav and Ishant would respond. Yadav bowled beautifully, going past Mathews' bat repeatedly, but India couldn't get that one more wicket that would hand them the clear advantage. Possibly there was a lesson in there: India would need much more patience and persistence if they are to win Test matches.
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