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Cricket PlayersIndia v Sri Lanka: Padikkal hits second ton of the series
The visitors were 300/5 on Day 1 of the second Test in Colombo, built on the opener’s 117 and skipper Gill’s 50
Mumbai: At Colombo’s Sinhalese Sports Club ground, the batters always love the chance to get first strike – the average first innings score there is 300-plus. On Sunday, India’s batters enjoyed that opportunity when captain Shubman Gill called correctly in the second Test against Sri Lanka.
With good runs under their belt in last week’s first Test win at Galle, KL Rahul and Co came out to bat oozing with confidence. The conditions were perfect too. The curator had prepared a pitch with good bounce for the stroke players to feast on, and it was bright and sunny while the bowlers dealt with energy-sapping heat and humidity.
In such cases, when everything is loaded in your favour, the fear is that the player can get carried away. It proved to be the case for two of India’s top four batters who had looked the best on the day – Gill and opener Rahul.
Deep Dive
Runs were there for the taking. However, the duo could not fully cash in, gifting away their wickets to loose shots outside off-stump. Rahul fell for 18 and Gill for 50.
As the two were left to rue the wasted chance, their young teammate Devdutt Padikkal showed how it should be done. India’s new No.3 put behind a nervy start – he was dropped on 0 and 1 – to produce another invaluable innings. Powered by the left-handed batter’s solid 117, India reached 300/5 at stumps on Day 1.
Coming in to bat at 37/1, Padikkal was fourth out on the total of 287, after sharing two important partnerships with Gill (120 runs) and Ravindra Jadeja (74).
The hundred was further proof of his appetite for big runs. After his innings of 167 and 44 in the first Test, he was again India’s anchor on Sunday.
It was a very different innings from Galle. If he was dominant in the first Test, this knock was built on patience, showing his adaptability.
Before the start of the series, he was an unknown commodity for the home team’s bowling attack. After Galle, the Lankans had done solid homework. Captain Dhananjaya de Silva tried various tactics. He made it as hard as possible for the left-handed batter, the spinners maintaining a tight line and the fast bowlers using short-ball tactics liberally.
Padikkal, however, showed great concentration to tide over the tough periods. His first four came off the 33rd ball he faced. In the 31st over, pacer Asitha Fernando bowled three bouncers in a row after Gill took a run off the third ball, and in his next over, he kept the southpaw pinned to the crease with a maiden over, again using short ball tactics.
Sri Lanka’s best chance was to get him early. The left-hander offered two chances, but the fielders couldn’t hold on. On the second ball he faced, he played a loose drive but Sonal Dinusha at backward point couldn’t convert the low chance in front of him. A few balls later, captain de Silva himself could not grab a powerful slash at slip.
During their third-wicket 209-ball 120-run stand, Gill was the more fluent player, effortlessly finding boundaries. The mark of Padikkal’s run-scoring was that, without being noticed, he still managed to match his captain’s strike-rate, maintaining pressure on the bowling with ones and twos and beating Gill to the fifty-run mark.
Except for India’s No.3, no other top order batter was able to consolidate.
Rahul, who started with a glorious cover drive for his first four before a clean straight hit for six, edged behind going for an extravagant cut to a wide ball and edged to the wicketkeeper. Usually calm and composed, the experienced opener couldn’t control the adrenaline rush and fell for 18.
Gill looked in great touch. Using his feet brilliantly against spin, he eased to fifty. But when he held the game by the scruff of the neck with Padikkal, he played a poor shot against Fernando and nicked behind.
Like Rahul’s dismissal, it was an innocuous delivery. The timing of Gill’s dismissal, at the stroke of tea, hurt India’s chances of seizing early control of the game.
Opener Yashasvi Jaiswal fell for 45 (53 balls). He was done in by smart tactics from Fernando. The burly Lanka pacer bowled two short deliveries which Jaiswal ramped and pulled for fours. But he had no answer to the sucker delivery next up, a lovely incoming ball that went through his defence and hit the stumps.
Jaiswal needlessly got involved in a physical confrontation with Fernando. Reacting to the pacer’s send-off, Jaiswal turned back and squared up with Asitha. The pair mildly head-butted each other before the Lanka skipper stepped in to separate them.
India had an injury scare when Rishabh Pant was hit on the wrist trying to hook pacer Lahiru Kumara. All-rounder Ravindra Jadeja, promoted to No.6 after Pant retied hurt, played a useful hand of 43.
Off-spinner Keshara Nuwantha finally ended Padikkal’s stay by knocking back his off-stump. But India bat deep and debutant Saransh Jain – he came in for the ill Kuldeep Yadav – has a First-Class average of 31.75.
The highlight for Sri Lanka’s bowling was the effort put in by the pacers Ferndando and Lahiru Kumara. They bowled tirelessly in the searing heat and humidity. Fernando was rewarded with three wickets, finishing the day with a dream ball to clean bowl Jadeja.
