Hosts 140/3 after Saha half-century takes Kohli’s men close to 400

COLOMBO: There was a period of play for about 110 minutes on Friday when everyone at the P. Sara Oval was mesmerized. There could only be one reason for it — Kumar Sangakkara was batting in the middle.
The world’s most prolific No. 3 — 11,661 runs before this innings — came out to bat in his favourite position in his penultimate innings and the entire stadium, with the likes of Mahela Jayawardene and Sanath Jayasuriya in attendance, stood up to applaud Sangakkara’s walk to the middle.
Like so many times in his 15-year career, the southpaw walked out with his team in a crisis, having lost opener Dimuth Karunaratne (1) off the first ball of the second over.
Umesh Yadav, who replaced Varun Aaron for this match, was bowling at a rapid pace and Sangakkara just managed to dig out a yorker off the first ball. After that, for close to two hours, the 37-year-old rekindled some magic of old, unleashing the attractive square drive to bring up his first boundary.
There were a few awkward moments against Yadav and Ishant Sharma and a blip against Ravichandran Ashwin when Ajinkya Rahane spilled a catch at first slip with the batsman on 24. But much like the second day’s play, which promised to build up to a crescendo but fizzled out with a whimper, Sangakkara could not capitalize on his start.
The man everyone wanted to see score a 39th Test century fell prey to Ashwin for the third time in this series, Rahane making up for his earlier drop with a brilliant diving catch as Sangakkara walked back with 32 (87b, 4x4) to his name.
It was hard toil for both teams for the rest of the day to try and gain some ascendancy in this second Test. India, however, will rue missing out on a big first-innings total after being 319 for 5 at one stage.
Wriddhiman Saha (56; 117b, 6x4), like the first essay in Galle, again held the lower order together with an element of luck. A Dhammika Prasad delivery kissed Saha’s off-stump but the bail didn’t fall, while another ungainly hoick by the Bengal stumper landed short of wicketkeeper Dinesh Chandimal.
Saha made full use of the reprieves and put on 46 useful runs for the eighth wicket with Amit Mishra (24; 50b, 3x4) to push the Indian total along. It was Rangana Herath (4/81) who had a profitable outing again to wrap up the Indian innings after lunch for 393.
India’s new-ball bowlers attacked with intent, led by Yadav’s first-ball wicket of Karunaratne. All-rounder Stuart Binny too should have had his first Test wicket when Kaushal Silva edged to the ’keeper, but replays showed the bowler had over-stepped by a couple of millimetres.
The Sara Oval track is getting increasingly slower and run-making is hard here. Silva (51; 118b, 8x4) nurdled the ball around but like Rohit Sharma on Day One, he threw his wicket away after getting set. Amit Mishra got some extra bounce from the pitch as Silva top-edged a sweep to short fine-leg.
“It is a track that will start to spin, but the spin will be very slow. We have to be very positive to score runs on this pitch from here on,” opener Silva said after the day’s play on Friday.
Silva considered himself ‘fortunate’ for the lucky break he got off Binny’s no-ball. “Fortunately for me umpire Bruce (Oxenford) told me to wait after I had edged to the ’keeper. Then I started to hear the crowd clap and I was really relieved,” he said.
Lahiru Thirimanne (batting on 28; 81b, 2x4) and skipper Angelo Mathews (batting on 19; 31b, 3x4) got through to stumps without any more damage as the Lankan ended the day at 140/3. Both teams will be eyeing at least a 100-run lead to build pressure on a wearing but slow track.
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