Lanka starring down the barrel of defeat

Sa'adi Thawfeeq reporting from India

NEW DELHI, Tuesday, Sri Lanka was starring down the barrel of defeat in the second cricket Test against India after losing four wickets for 14 runs in the final session of play on the penultimate day at the Ferozshah Kotla grounds here today.

Set an imposing fourth innings total of 436 runs for victory, Sri Lanka was struggling at 123 for five wickets in their second innings by the close, still trailing by a massive 313 runs with five wickets intact and a full day's play ahead of them tomorrow. As they had done in the first innings the Sri Lankan batsmen handed the initiative to the Indians after batting themselves into a promising position.

The middle order collapse in the Sri Lankan batting is becoming all too familiar and unless it is addressed immediately they will be finding themselves finishing on the losing side quite often.

Today they collapsed from 109-1 to 123-5 in the final hour's play handing back the advantage to India who at one stage looked like running out of options when Marvan Atapattu and Kumar Sangakkara were in partnership.

The pair saw off first innings destroyer Anil Kumble and forced Rahul Dravid to fall back on fast bowler Ajith Agarkar. But that change of bowling only brought disaster for Sri Lanka as Sangakkara (33) went edging a catch behind the wicket.

The fall of that wicket saw Dravid bring Kumble back into the attack. Kumble is no great spinner of the ball like Muralitharan but he thrives on getting wickets by putting pressure on the batsmen.

By giving him two wickets (Atapattu and Bandara) in one over Sri Lanka had once again played into his hands. Two of the four wickets to fall were due to rashness on the part of the batsmen.

Having played with dogged determination for three hours, Atapattu suddenly had the urge to come down the track and take on Kumble for no apparent reason. He met with his folly by hitting back a low return catch to the bowler.

Atapattu's dismissal for 67 (11 fours) opened the floodgates for India who capitalized on his dismissal to grab two further wickets to edge closer to victory.

Atapattu was lucky that he came even this far after surviving a close lbw decision against Kumble at 49 when he didn't offer a shot to a ball that was pitched off stump. On a pitch of this nature, not offering a shot was like committing hara kiri. Then in the following over he attempted to cut off the back foot and was lucky to play the ball onto his right boot. Although he made knocks of 88 and 67 it has proved to be of no value to the team's chances of saving the Test.

With only five wickets standing the writing is on the wall for Sri Lanka although they still have Jayawardene (9 not out) at the wicket with Tillakratne Dilshan and Jehan Mubarak to follow with the tail. It is a big ask from the rest of the batting to save Sri Lanka from impending defeat.

They will have to conserve their wickets and bat out three full sessions of play, a feat which is not impossible but one that requires technique, application and patience.

The manner in which India batted today suggested there was no devilry on the pitch. The few odd balls kept low which is quite common with a pitch now already four days old. On a pitch of this nature playing with a straight bat was all the more important because the ball hardly moved or spun, unless it hit a rough spot. For Sri Lanka to get anywhere close to drawing the Test they needed a good start to their innings. They went as far as 30 runs before Gunawardene fell lbw to Pathan for nine.

The way Gunawardene bats does not exude any confidence to the rest of the batting because of the many false strokes he plays.

He has his limitations playing at this level, the chief one being the lack of feet movement which sees him making shots out of position eventually leading to his dismissal. Sunil Gavaskar, the former Indian captain and batting maestro wrote in his column in 'The Hindustan Times': "If Gunawardene is supposed to be Jayasuriya's replacement, then the Lankans have got it all wrong. He may well score runs but will never convey the same danger that Jayasuriya does".

India lost the wicket of only Ganguly for 39 as they piled on the runs to finally declare at 375-6. Yuvraj Singh who turned 24 on Monday and Dhoni waded into the Lankan bowling to put together an entertaining stand of 104 in 83 minutes. Dravid closed the Indian second innings no sooner Dhoni had completed his maiden Test half century off 51 balls (5 fours, 2 sixes), leaving Yuvraj unbeaten on 77 scored in 223 minutes with 10 fours.

Muralitharan who ran through the Indian batting in the first innings with figures of 7 for 100 had to toil through 34 overs before picking up his only wicket of the innings when he foxed Ganguly with his doosra.

The first Test of the 3-match series ended in a draw at Chennai.

INDIA 1ST INNINGS 290
SRI LANKA 1ST INNINGS 230

INDIA 2ND INNINGS 
overnight 237-5)
G. Gambhir lbw b Vaas				03
I.K. Pathan c Sangakkara b Fernando		93
V.V.S. Laxman c Sangakkara b Vaas		11
S.R. Tendulkar lbw b Bandara			16
R. Dravid run out				53
S.C. Ganguly b Muralitharan			39 
Yuvraj Singh not out				77
M.S. Dhoni not out				51
Extras (b-9, lb-16, nb-7)			32
TOTAL (6 wkts decl., 105 overs, 460 mins)	375

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-12 (Gambhir), 2-42 (Laxman), 3-86
Tendulkar), 4-178 (Pathan), 5-190 (Dravid), 6-271 (Ganguly).
BOWLING: Vaas 21-4-65-2 (1nb), Muralitharan 48-5-118-1 (1nb),
Fernando 22-5-75-1(5nb), Bandara 20-2-74-1, Dilshan 4-0-18-0.

SRI LANKA 2ND INNINGS
D.A. Gunawardene lbw b Pathan			09
M.S. Atapattu c and b Kumble			67
K.C. Sangakkara c Dhoni b Agarkar		33
D.P.M. Jayawardene not out			09
C.M. Bandara lbw b Kumble			00
T.T. Samaraweera c Dravid b Harbhajan		00
Extras (lb-1)					01
TOTAL (5 wkts at close, 50.3 overs, 204 mins)	123

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-30 (Gunawardene), 2-109 (Sangakkara),
3-119 (Atapattu), 4-119 (Bandara), 5-123 (Samaraweera).

BOWLING: Pathan 9-1-30-1, Agarkar 10-3-31-1, 
Kumble19-4-34-2, Harbhajan 13.3-4-27-1.