August 09, 2008
If not for Kumar Sangakkara, Sri Lanka would
have struggled to have got 249 which is India's first innings
total. It was a day of some old fashioned cricket at the P
Sara Stadium in Colombo. It was a day where nobody could
afford to make any mistakes. Although Sri Lanka had the better
of the day, India somehow managed to comeback again and again
in the match. And at stumps on Day 2, the match perfectly
hangs in a balance with the Lankans with a tiny little lead of
two runs and with just the four wickets in hand. On the
brighter side, Kumar Sangakkara is unbeaten with his 17th Test
hundred.
The second day's play started in a
completely inauspicious manner for the visitors. During the
warm-up session in
the morning, came a big blow in the form of an
ankle twist scare to VVS Laxman. Somewhere in the afternoon,
Sachin Tendulkar jarred his left elbow onto the ground while
trying to take a diving catch. If that wasn't enough there
were two more injuries after Tea, first to Ishant Sharma, who
pulled off a buttock sprain after falling down in his follow
through and later in the day when Parthiv was hit on his nose
through the deflection of the batsman's pad. Parthiv was
courageous enough to continue keeping, but he was really lucky
that the ball didn't hit him on the eye!
When the second day's play started, India
had the difficult task of getting rid of two stubborn
defensive batsmen in Michael Vandort and night watchman
Chaminda Vaas. In the 17th over, there was the first
breakthrough when Zaheer Khan in the middle of an intelligent
spell, got one to nip back and to have Vandort plumb infront.
SL at 42 for 2 and India sensing that they could bowl them out
cheaply. But that wasn't to be as Vaas continued to show a lot
of discipline in keeping his end intact and Kumar Sangakkara
bent on making his first big score of the series. India's next
breakthrough came only in the afternoon session which meant
that the night watchman Chaminda Vaas was successful in
batting through an entire session. He got out only when he
wanted to play a few shots to get a move on. Vaas was caught
at covers off an ambitious cover drive in Harbhajan's bowling
in the 48th over which ended his long vigil of 47 from 111
balls with 9 fours. Vaas aided Sangakkara in putting on 95 for
the 3rd wicket.
Harbhajan helped his side to spring back in
the game in his very next over by getting his off break to
drift away Mahela to beat his attempted sweep shot. The ball
hit Mahela low infront of the stumps and the Umpire was
convinced in giving that out lbw. Mahela (2) as expected asked
for a review which wasn't a successful one. India were then
unlucky not to have Samaraweera out lbw just a while after
those two wickets. Samaraweera was struck on the pad by a
Kumble skidder, the stride wasn't a big one, but enough doubt
was there whether there was an inside edge or not. The Umpire
gave the benefit of doubt and Kumble asked for the Review
which should have gone in his favour, simply because there was
confirmation of the ball hitting the pad first! There was an
injured Sachin who raised his finger up in the dressing room
to his team mates on the ground, but the ones who mattered
declared that as 'not out'. That certainly wasn't the right
umpiring decision despite the presence of the review system
and technology.
Samaraweera always likes playing cricket the
old-fashioned way and his patience enabled Sangakkara to put
up another solid partnership. The right hander looked set for
a good score until Zaheer produced an 'out of the blue'
delivery to find a thin edge in Samaraweera's backfoot defence.
Thilan Samaraweera made 35 (from 84 balls with 3 fours) in a
partnership of 60. Skipper Anil Kumble after a long
frustrating spell got his first wicket when his skidder struck
Dilshan's pad before he could get his bat down. Dilshan
contributed 23 while taking SL to 244 for 6. He did help
Sangakkara get to his 17th century by promptly responding to a
risky single. India were to have wicket no.7 when Harbhajan's
doosra foxed Prasanna Jayawardene to hit his backpad. Umpire
Rudi Koertzen raised his finger up but the Review System
played spoilsport. To the naked eye, it was a straightforward
lbw decision, the ball would have just gone onto hit the off
stump. But there was the Virtual Eye that showed the ball to
be sailing over the top which wasn't really convincing. The
Umpires had to follow that given evidence and that gave
Prasanna Jayawardene and SL a lifeline. The long day's play
came to an end because of bad light with SL at 251 for 6 in 92
overs. Sangakkara is on 107 and Prasanna on 1.
|
