India were in complete command against Sri Lanka in their first-ever day-night Test being played at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore, after 16 wickets fell on the opening day of the second and final Test with the host finding them 166 runs ahead of the hapless visitors at stumps.
Sri Lanka spinners Lasith Embuldeniya, Praveen Jayawickrama and Dhananjaya de Silva did well to share 8 wickets between them but once again it was their batting which let the island nation down on this tour.
Shreyas Iyer scored a superb 92 which pushed a struggling Indian side to a respectable total of 252 in the first innings, on what turned out to be a spicy and challenging wicket at the M Chinnaswamy stadium for the pink ball match, against which the Sri Lankan batsmen fell like a pack of cards to be left reeling at 86/6 at stumps on Saturday.
Sri Lanka seized control in the first session on the opening day on Saturday they kept making inroads into this long and dangerous Indian batting line-up, reducing them at 93/4 in the first session with the likes of R Sharma (15), Mayank Agarwal (4), Hanuma Vihari (31) and V Kohlii (23) back into the hut after making starts.
Agrawal cut a sorry figure in his first match at his home ground when he went for a run; it was never there in the starting stage of the match to be embarrassingly run out for 4. His opening partner and India captain R Sharma could not last long as a brilliant delivery from Embuldeniya spun away from the batsman to catch an edge of the bat and settle in the hands of de Silva at second slip.
Vihari was caught behind after 31 from 81 balls but it was a disappointing outing for the former India captain V Kohlii, who was starting to look good in his quest for the 71st international hundred. After dazzling with a few attractive strokes on both the sides of the wicket, Kohlii could not prevent a delivery by de Silva that kept atrociously low and hit him in front of the wickets on the pads. Kohlii fell for 23 which came from 48 balls and a couple of boundaries.
India wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant tried to take an aggressive approach and he was partly successful with it as well. In the second session, wherein India lost their remaining 6 wickets, Pant played an aggressive knock of 39 from only 26 balls for which he hit 7 boundaries. It was indeed a right approach on a challenging wicket which was spanning more than expected and making life difficult for batsmen.
But not so much for Iyer, who appeared to be batting on another wicket. The right-handed India No 5 displayed his rich arsenal or strokes on both the sides of the pitch to crack 10 boundaries and 4 sixes in his knock of 92, which came from only 98 balls.
Iyer kept running out of partners throughout his innings which forced him to be aggressive and inventive with his stroke-play, which got him the desired results on most of the occasions. He also made most of the two lifelines that he got — when he had just brought up his half-century, and later when he was on 80.
Iyer was the last man to be dismissed in the Indian innings when he stepped out of the crease looking for a big shot against Sri Lanka bowler Jayawickrama, but was stumped and missed to connect with the ball completely.
India were bowled out for 252 in 59.1 overs with Embuldeniya returning with figures of 24-2-94-3 whereas Jayawickrama taking 17.1-3-81-3. De Silva did well to take 2/32 from 7 overs whereas playing in his last Test for his country, Sri Lanka fast bowler Suranga Lakmal returned with an impressive 8-3-12-1.
Kusal Mendis was the first to fall in the Sri Lankan innings when Jasprit Bumrah drew an edge of the bat of the right-handed batsmen which was collected by Iyer in the third slip, and Sri Lanka were rocked further when Mohammed Shami went through the defense of their captain Dimuth Karunaratne in his first ball of the match to leave them reeling at 14/2 from 5 overs.
Lahiru Thirimanne hit a couple of spectacular boundaries but he was removed out of the equation by Bumrah, who also contributed late in the day when he removed the dangerous Angelo Mathews, who was the best batsman for Sri Lanka by a long distance making 43 from 85 balls with 3 boundaries and 2 sixes.
De Silva fell for 10 to Mohammed Shami whereas the left-handed talented Sri Lanka batsman Charith Asalanka continued to pick a wrong approach for batting against this Indian bowling line-up. Asalanka perished for just 5, giving the comeback India bowler Axar Patel his first wicket in the contest while trying to hit him out of the park.
At stumps, Sri Lanka wicketkeeper-batsman Niroshan Dickwella was batting on 10 in the company of Embuldeniya, who had yet to score a run.
Devarchit Varma is a cricket writer and journalist with an experience of more than a decade, having worked at Hindustan Times (newspaper) and CricketCountry (website). Along with covering international and domestic cricket, he has also interviewed several current and former top players such as Rohit Sharma, Steve Smith, Dale Steyn, Michael Hussey, Jacques Kallis, Brendon McCullum, Shane Watson, Lasith Malinga and many more. He has also worked in other beats as a journalist in Bollywood (Reliance BigOye) and IT (SiliconIndia) industries.
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