Asked to bat on a testing, grassy pitch, India held on grimly – with some luck on their side – to keep the damage down to two wickets on a day that rain allowed only 15 overs of play. KL Rahul fell shouldering arms in the first over, Ajinkya Rahane was done in by seam movement soon after, but Cheteshwar Pujara – getting an opportunity in the absence of two injured openers – and Virat Kohli stayed together for 36 runs before heavy showers forced an early lunch. Rain continued to make frequent appearances, making sure no more play was possible on day one.
Once again Dhammika Prasad struck in the first over – he is making quite a habit of doing so in the first over of an innings or of a new spell. Also, much like Marcus North of Australia, Rahul continued the trend of making either a low score or a hundred. He now has seven scores of 16 and below, and two hundreds. Despite Prasad’s form for seam movement back in, Rahul left alone the second ball of the day in premeditated fashion, and had his off stump pegged back. Had he even covered the stumps, Rahul would have forced the umpire to make an lbw decision, which could have gone either way given how the ball hit the top of off stump.
Rahane, the other centurion at P Sara Oval, got off to a better start than in the first innings last week, but was done in by the same movement from a full ball from Nuwan Pradeep, who had taken Dushmantha Chameera’s place in the XI. The most crucial play of the session, though, belonged to one of the two debutant wicketkeepers. Kusal Perera, who does not keep in limited-overs cricket when playing alongside Dinesh Chandimal, came out with the gloves on. The only reason you could think of is that Perera bats higher in the shorter formats, and Sri Lanka are looking to get more out of Chandimal’s batting in Tests, and want him up the order.
Be that as it may, Kohli, on 8, couldn’t resist pushing at a length ball wide outside off. This one from Pradeep seamed back in, took the inside edge, but Perera dropped a fairly simple catch to his left. Also, around the same time, Prasad had been taken out of the attack after three overs because of a fitness issue. Instead of being 28 for 3, India were only 33 for 2 thanks to five penalty runs because Perera had spilled the ball on to the helmet placed behind him.
Kohli and Pujara showed better discipline, but Prasad came back to force another impatient push from the India captain. Having scored only one run off the last 19 balls he faced, Kohli again played away from the body, but in a worrying sign a second edge in the first session of the Test fell short of the slips. The first one had come from Pujara.
The amount of grass left on this relaid pitch was interesting for the SSC track, the only maligned pitch in Sri Lanka. Under pressure to produce results, the SSC went the way of the grass, but the lack of bounce was a worry. Most of the results at this venue have come through big first-innings runs, and a combination of spin and scoreboard pressure. Recent matches that have begun with early wickets have ended in draws. Rain did not help matters either.
India 1st innings
KL Rahul b Prasad 2
CA Pujara not out 19
AM Rahane lbw b Pradeep 8
V Kohli* not out 14
Extras (w 1, nb 1, pen 5) 7
Total (2 wickets; 15 overs) 50
To batRG Sharma, NV Ojha†, STR Binny, R Ashwin, A Mishra, I Sharma, UT Yadav
Fall of wickets 1-2 (Rahul, 0.2 ov), 2-14 (Rahane, 3.4 ov)
Bowling
KTGD Prasad 4-0-16-1, N Pradeep 6-0-16-1, AD Mathews 4-2-7-0, HMRKB Herath 1-0-6-0
Sri Lanka team
FDM Karunaratne, JK Silva, WU Tharanga, HDRL Thirimanne, AD Mathews*, LD Chandimal, MDKJ Perera†, KTGD Prasad, HMRKB Herath, PHT Kaushal, N Pradeep
MATCH DETAILS
Toss – Sri Lanka, who chose to field
Test debuts – NV Ojha (India); MDKJ Perera (Sri Lanka)
Player of the match – tba
Umpires – NJ Llong (England) and RJ Tucker (Australia)
TV umpire – RR Wimalasiri
Match referee – AJ Pycroft (Zimbabwe)
Reserve umpire – RSA Palliyaguruge
