Even stevens on Day One at Brabourne by Rohit Sakunia

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Scorecard:	India v Sri Lanka
Player:	Harbhajan Singh, TM Dilshan, AD Mathews
Event:	Sri Lanka in India 2009/10

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DateLine: 2nd December 2009

 

On a testing pitch and facing testing spells from Harbhajan Singh, S. Sreesanth and Zaheer Khan, first Tillakaratne Dilshan and then Angelo Matthews stood between India and the first day victory. Overall Sri Lanka can be said, had a decent day apart from the three wickets that fell at the fag end of the day's play which kind of opened the game. Nonetheless the visitors scored at close to five runs an over in the last session of play and took full toll of an indisciplined bowling effort by the hosts. Courtesy the last session, Sri Lanka also now have the record of scoring most number of runs in a day's play against India in India.

 

The pitch seamed, turned, bounced and did many a things on a first day that could now make Muralitharan rethink of his retirement as there is a big possibility that he will succeed. The Lankans at the end of the first day have 366 runs on the board with 2 wickets still remaining and their bowlers would have already started licking their fingers to touch the leather when India bats in the second and a probable fourth inning.

 

Earlier, Kumar Sangakkara won a good toss at the Brabourne stadium and the wicket gave ample evidence to justify his decision of batting first. The ball started turning from the first hour and for the first time in the series there was a good amount of bounce to assist the turn. Lankan openers Tillakratne Dilshan and Tharanga Paranavitana gave them a brisk start, something which looked similar to what Indian openers did at Kanpur. They raced to 93 in 19.5 overs before Harbhajan struck to send back Paranavitana after the left-hander had compiled an 81 ball 53.

 

On a pitch that gave the bowlers everything they would be interested in, swing, bounce and turn, the Lankan openers made sure they keep the advantage with themselves before lunch and scored 117 for 1 before the first break on the first day. The left-handed opener started the day with a boundary, first ball from Zaheer Khan and continued cover driving him as the left-arm seamer did pitch a few balls at that length. If Zaheer was taken care by Paranavitana, Dilshan started to smack last match MOM Sreesanth. Sreesanth tried bouncing out Dilshan but the right-hander turned smarter pulling him for a six and a boundary off those deliveries.

 

Seeing that his seamers weren't proving to be a handful, Dhoni introduced spin pretty early on the first day. This started a test for the Lankans. There was bounce, turn and Bhajji suddenly started to give the leather a little loop, a time when he becomes most lethal.

 

Seeing the pitch aid spin, the Indian skipper brought in second spinner Pragyan Ojha also pretty quickly in the first session. Dilshan took him on and, stepped out and hit him a couple of boundaries in his first over. Harbhajan, though had started to look menacing and finally drew Paranavitana outside off and got the edge with the break.

 

In came Lankan skipper who looked hardly comfortable against spinners. His ordeal came to an end as he tried to tickle Ojha down the leg side and only succeeded in giving Dhoni an easy take. Dilshan had by now changed his game a bit. By no means did he turn slow but he cut out the extraordinary shots, somethings that he is so famous for. A lot of his cautious approach was also because of the second spell by Sreesanth. The bowler made both the batsmen play cautiously.

 

He got the ball to swing, garnered good bounce and occasional bouncers were on the mark. In the fifth over of this spell, the effort was paid off as Jayawardene fell to a sharp bouncer. The former Lankan captain went for the hook and top-edged. Seeing an opening, Harbhajan was brought back and immediately got a straightforward bat-pad dismissal against Thilan Samaraweera.

 

All this while Dilshan continued to go strong. He found an able ally in Angelo Matthews who played his kind of a game today, attacking all Indian bowlers. Dilshan hit a six off the penultimate delivery before tea and reached 99. He tried hitting another one the next ball, but only succeeding in tangling himself on the crease. Fortunately for him no damage was done and he succeeded in bringing up his three figure score post the interval.

 

He could not do much damage though thereafter as he was unlucky to have got a bad decision. A Harbhajan Off-spinner turned in and Dilshan stretched forward to defend. The ball was long away from the gloves or the bat and bounded straight off the pad. Nigel Llong thought he was out and that is what mattered at that moment. Even his wicket though did not stop the free flow of runs. Prasanna Jayawardene, who has been in decent touch in the series came out and started to go after the bowling from the word go.

 

No Lankan batsmen in the entire day was apprehensive in using his feet to the spinners and Jayawardene was no different. He was further assisted by a wayward Ojha who continuosly gave him width to free his arms. Jayawardene also slog-swept Harbhajan for a six over square-leg. During this partnership Matthews also brought up his fifty aided by 9 boundaries.

 

Jayawardene was also lucky on many occasions as Zaheer beat him on numeroous occasions during a good spell and once also succeeded in getting him to mistime a pull straight over the top. Fortunately for the Lankan wicketkeeper, there wasn't any fielder to lap that one. The duo went from strength to strength and raised the fifty run-stand pretty quickly. Finally Ojha struck and Jayawardene who had been flirting with fire went for another heave over long-on but could not clear it.

 

India took the new ball immediately after the 80th over and the seamers began asking some good quality questions. With the new ball Zaheer was immaculate and beat the bat on a few occasions but Sreesanth was wayward and both Kulasekara and Matthews took full advantage. Kulasekara was caught behind at the fag end of the day, a just reward for a bowler who had toiled hard all day long. A bad shot of Harbhajan's bowling then ended Rangana Herath's brief stay at the wicket. India had via this small flurry of wickets staged a comeback but a total of 370 odd batting first looks pretty good on this track which has started to show its support to bowling all kinds on the first day itself.