Lankan batsmen prove they are just average

Sa'adi Thawfeeq reporting from India, AHMEDABAD, Monday - Sri Lanka batsmen showed that they neither have the temperament nor the strokes to tackle top class spin bowling when they continued to repeat the same mistakes which brought about their downfall at Delhi.

By stumps on the second day of the third and final cricket Test played at the Sardar Patel Stadium in Motera here today, Sri Lanka had struggled to 131-5 in reply to India's first innings of 398.

For the third time in the series it was the dismissal of Marvan Atapattu in the final session that triggered a collapse in the final session.

The Lankan captain was going well on 40 when he went for an impulsive sweep off Harbhajan Singh and top edged a catch to his vis-...-vis Virender Sehwag who ran from backward short leg to hold it.

Within the space of another 43 minutes Sri Lanka had also lost Mahela Jayawardene (0), Tilan Samaraweera (1) and Sangakkara (41) to collapse from 74-1 to 105-5.

Sri Lanka 0-1 down in the series had to call all the shots if they are to convert this Test into a victory for them. But the way they have played so far it is far from convincing whether they can even get close to achieving that.

The two sessions of play in the second Test amounting to 60 minutes proved their undoing at Delhi and Sri Lanka coach Tom Moody described one of them as 45 minutes of madness. Wonder what he will have to say with regard to the collapse today? Moody was confident that his team would make sure they don't make the same mistakes again.

To quote him: "We will be working very hard towards achieving it in the next five days. It is up to the players to learn from the mistakes they made in the last Test. All you can do in this situation is to review your performance and correct the mistakes you made and hope not to make them again. That's the difference between good teams and good players and average teams and average players."

Sri Lanka's first task will be to look at a score of 199 runs which would save them from the ignominy of being asked to follow-on. They have five wickets intact and are 68 runs adrift of that target.

The destroyer of Sri Lanka's innings was off-spinner Harbhajan Singh who ended the day with four wickets for 24 runs, having taken his first three wickets without conceding a run in 16 balls.

Laxman shines

The history of Test cricket is replete with the number of times the lower order batting has come to the rescue of a team. India's first innings of the third and final cricket Test against Sri Lanka at the Sardar Patel Stadium in Motera here provided one such instance where the lower half of the batting added a whopping 301 runs to give India a decent total of 398. It was a fine comeback by the Indian batsmen who were at one time struggling at 97-5.

Their magnificent recovery came in the shape of the tall 31-yer-old right-hander from Hyderabad Venkata Laxman who carved out his ninth century in Test cricket and his first against Sri Lanka.

Renowned for his immense powers of concentration, Laxman displayed just that in grinding his way to a 232-ball century before a rare lapse in concentration five balls later saw a delivery from the persevering Farveez Maharoof pierce his defence.

His 401 minutes at the wicket for 104 (14 fours) saw him forge partnerships of 86 and 125 with Mahendar Dhoni (49) and Irfan Pathan (82) which enabled India to wriggle out of a tight situation. Leaving aside Laxman, a top order bat who is picked for his batting, Dhoni and Pathan have become thorns in the Sri Lankan camp with their imperious style of batting.

As at Delhi and now here, they have spoilt carefully laid Sri Lankan plans to upset the Indians. Just as when Sri Lanka had India by the jugular at 97-5, the two came together in partnership with Laxman to raise the score by 211 runs that not only saw India recover but give their bowlers a total to bowl at the Lankans.

While Dhoni goes on an all out attack to dominate the bowling from the outset, Pathan is more technically correct and displays the temperament and strokes to be classed as an emerging all-rounder, although personally he does not want to be called so.

When he made 93 after being sent to open the Indian second innings at Delhi the Indian media started to promote him as an all-rounder, but Pathan made it very clear that being called an all-rounder was not right saying it was too early to pass judgement. "I'm not an all-rounder," he said.

"I do what the team wants. I am keeping to my limitations. It takes time to be called an all-rounder." How true.

Those words from Pathan gave an indication of how he thinks and plays his cricket.

Maharoof bowling with tight control and maintaining a fine line and length was justly rewarded with two wickets that of Laxman and Pathan who for the second successive time missed out on maiden Test hundred.

Today he was trapped lbw for 82 scored in 221 minutes (12 fours).

The problem Sri Lanka had with Lasith Malinga was that he can be erratic as well as unplayable at times. The fine dividing line between the two is where he pitches the ball.

The high number of extras is due to the amount of times he was wayward and off the mark making it hardwork for wicket-keeper Sangakkara who was forced to dive goalkeeper fashioned several times trying to stop such deliveries.

The effortlessness with which India's low order scored runs gave the indication of how much the pitch had eased out and turned into a good batting track.

Upul Tharanga's entry to Test cricket as an opening batsman was rather brief. He failed to make contact with the first seven balls he confronted at this level, faced a further seven balls off which he collected two singles and was then out edging an outswinger from Pathan to the wicket-keeper. He is only 20 and will learn with time provided he is given the opportunity.

INDIA 1ST INNINGS
(Overnight 247-6)

G. Gambhir c Tharanga b Malinga   	19   
V. Sehwag b Malinga  			20          
V.V.S. Laxman b Maharoof  		104  
S.R. Tendulkar c Mubarak b Muralitharan 	23  
Yuvraj Singh c Samaraweera b Muralitharan	0
M. Kaif c Atapattu b Bandara          	4  
M.S. Dhoni lbw b Muralitharan        	49  
I.K. Pathan lbw b Maharoof  		82  
A.B. Agarkar b Malinga         		26  
A. Kumble c Jayawardene b Bandara          	21   
Harbhajan Singh not out        		8  

Extras (b-15, lb-13, nb-9, w-5) 		42

TOTAL (all out, 122.4 overs, 562 mins) 	398

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-31 (Gambhir), 2-52 (Sehwag), 3-88 (Tendulkar), 
	            4-88 (Yuvraj), 5-97 (Kaif), 6-183 (Dhoni), 
	            7-308 (Laxman), 8-345 (Pathan), 
	            9-384 (Agarkar), 10-398 (Kumble).  

BOWLING: Malinga 32-4-113-3 (1w, 9nb), 
	Maharoof 27-11-52-2, 
	Muralitharan 36-4-128-3, 	
	Bandara 24.4-3-69-2, 
	Dilshan 3-0-8-0. 

SRI LANKA 1ST INNINGS  

W.U. Tharanga c Dhoni b Pathan     	2  
M.S. Atapattu c Sehwag b Harbhajan          	40  
K.C. Sangakkara b Harbhajan          	41    
D.P.M. Jayawardene c Kaif b Harbhajan    	0  
T.T. Samaraweera c Kaif b Harbhajan         	1  
T.M. Dilshan not out 			27  
J. Mubarak not out    			11   

Extras (b-1, lb-2, nb-6) 		9  

TOTAL (5 wkts at close, 40 overs, 172 mins) 	131

TO BAT: M.F. Maharoof, C.M. Bandara, M. Muralitharan, S.L. Malinga.  

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-14 (Tharanga), 2-74 (Atapattu), 3-74 (Jayawardene), 
	4-82 (Samaraweera), 5-105  (Sangakkara).  

BOWLING: Pathan 10-1-36-1, 
	Agarkar 6-2-18-0 (6nb), 
	Kumble 13-2-50-0, 
	Harbhajan 11-3-24-4.