Lanka takes honours in rain-ruined Test

Sa'adi Thawfeeq reporting from India

CHENNAI, Tuesday - Sri Lanka gained a psychological advantage over India for the rest of the Test series when they bundled the host nation out for their lowest total against them on the fifth and final day of the rain-ruined first cricket Test which ended in a predictable draw at the M.A. Chiddambaram Stadium here today.

Sri Lanka bowled India out for 167 and then in the remaining time left replied with 168 for four wickets with Mahela Jayawardene stroking an elegant 76 off 80 balls (15 fours, 1 six), his 24th Test fifty which had all the hall marks of a batsman in form.

He cut delicately, glanced elegantly, and drove with precision timing that left the fielders with no chance to cut off the boundaries. But when a century was within striking distance umpire Daryl Harper who ruled him out caught off bat-pad when the bat was nowhere near the ball rudely cut his wonderful innings short. It is no secret that the Sri Lankan players have a great disliking for Harper because of the number of times they have been 'done in' by him over the years.

The obdurate Tilan Samaraweera proved an ideal foil to Jayawardene in a third wicket partnership of 62 runs in 54 minutes where his contribution was only nine.

He remained unbeaten on 35 off 93 balls when the match was called off after three of the 15 mandatory overs were bowled.

India's previous low against Sri Lanka was 180 at Galle in 2001. On their home soil they have never been dismissed for under 288 in 12 Tests against Sri Lanka. Thus today's performance should easily rank as one right up there for the gutsy Sri Lankans who have never let their morale suffer despite the 1-6 hammering they received at the hands of India in the overs-limit game last month, but have regrouped and come back strongly to rattle the confidence of the Indians in the longer version.

Resuming at 90-2, India were dismissed shortly after lunch for 167 in 73.2 overs with vice-captain Chaminda Vaas leading the team from the front in the absence of injured Marvan Atapattu to finish with magnificent figures of four wickets for 20 runs off 21 overs of which 14 were maidens. At one stage he bowled ten maiden overs on the trot.

Atapattu had to leave the field as early as the first hour's play when he aggravated a twisted right ankle while fielding. A precautionary X'ray didn't reveal anything serious and he came to bat at the fall of the third wicket.

It was a fine piece of left-arm fast-medium bowling by the highly under rated Vaas, who would easily rank as the second most successful left-arm seamer in Test cricket after Wasim Akram. The former Pakistan pace ace finished his illustrious career with 414 wickets from 104 Tests. Following today's haul Vaas took his tally to 298 wickets from 89 Tests and is within sight of topping the 300-Test wicket mark during the series. He took the man-of-the-match award.

With the Test starting well into the fourth day, as a result of rain on the first three, a winning result was totally out of the question with only a maximum of four sessions of play left in the remaining days.

When India won the toss and batted first the focus was on whether former captain Sachin Tendulkar would surpass Sunil Gavaskar's world Test record of 35 Test centuries.

It took a top bowler to get rid of a top class batsman when Muttiah Muralitharan trapped him in front of the wicket. Tendulkar would have reached that landmark had he not been overcautious in his approach.

The Tendulkar we saw today lacked the fluency with which we have become so associated with his game. Coming to Test cricket after a lay-off of nine months through a tennis elbow injury and faced with the overwhelming expectations to break Sunil Gavaskar's world record for the number of Test centuries, the master batsman eventually succumbed to the pressures brought around him, which saw him veer away from playing his natural game.

That he made only 22 in a stay of 158 minutes at the crease and faced 126 balls tells how well the Sri Lankans kept the pressure on him and did not allow him to play his natural game.

India were pushed onto the back foot in the fifth over of the morning when Vaas had Rahul Dravid caught behind by Sangakkara standing upto the stumps for 32. It was a gamble the wicket-keeper took because in Vaas' first over of the morning he failed to hold onto an edge from Tendulkar when the batsman had added to his overnight score of 11.

Once the two key figures in the Indian batting line up was got rid of, Sri Lanka worked themselves into the rest of the Indian batting as they crumbled from 97-2 to 167 all out. Overall it was poor cricket by a team that had prior to this Test won eight of their last 11 one-day internationals against Sri Lanka and South Africa. The run outs of Lakshman (although he did not play in the one-day series) and Agarkar suggested that India had yet to recover from the one-day fever.

Sri Lanka was brilliant on the field and they not only bowled to a plan but their fielding had improved drastically from what it was in the one-day series.

There was an extra spring in the step of the Sri Lankan fielders and although they were without Atapattu for a major part of the Indian innings, his deputy Vaas marshaled the team adequately.

INDIA 1ST INNINGS (Overnight 90-2) 
G. Gambhir b Vaas				00 
V. Sehwag c Atapattu b Vaas			36 
R. Dravid c Sangakkara b Vaas			32 
S.R. Tendulkar lbw b Muralitharan		22 
V.V.S. Lakshman run out				05   
S.C. Ganguly c Dilshan b Fernando		05 
M.S. Dhoni c Gunawadene b Bandara		30 
K. Pathan c and b Muralitharan			00 
A. Agarkar run out				04 
A. Kumble c and b Vaas				09 
Harbhajan Singh not out				04 
Extras (b-12, lb-2, nb-6)			20 
TOTAL (all out, 73.2 overs, 303 mins)		167 

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-13(Gambhir), 2-45(Sehwag),3-97 (Dravid),
4-108 (Tendulkar), 5-109 (Lakshman), 6-117 (Ganguly), 
7-118 (Pathan),8-128 (Agarkar),9-159 (Kumble),10-167 (Dhoni). 
BOWLING: Vaas 21-14-20-4, Fernando 16-3-58-1 (6nb), 
Muralitharan 25-6-60-2, Bandara 11.2-6-15-1.
 
SRI LANKA 1ST INNINGS 

D.A. Gunawardene c Dhoni b Pathan		04 
K.C. Sangakkara lbw b Kumble			30 
D.P.M. Jayawardene c Gambhir b Kumble		71 
T.T. Samaraweera not out			35 
M.S. Atapattu b Kumble				07 
T.M. Dilshan not out				08 
Extras (nb-7, w-1, pen.-5)			13	 
TOTAL (4 wkts at stumps, 43 overs, 179 mins)	168 

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-5 (Gunawardene), 2-62 (Sangakkara), 
3-124 (Jayawardene), 4-158 (Atapattu).  
TO BAT: J. Mubarak, W.P.U.J.C. Vaas, C.M. Bandara, 
M. Muralitharan, C.R.D. Fernando.
BOWLING: 
Pathan 7-0-43-1 (1w),Agarkar 10-3-29-0,Ganguly 2-0-16-0(2nb),
Harbhajan 9-2-34-0, Kumble 15-3-41-3 (5nb).