India 300 for 5 (Padikkal 117, Gill 50, Jaiswal 45, Asitha 3-46) vs Sri Lanka
Jadeja continued gamely afterwards, but ended up feeling the impact belatedly as he struggled with cramps in the same left forearm. After two separate bouts of physio treatment, his concentration was disrupted enough for him to leave an inducker from Asitha that seamed back and clipped the top of off stump.
That was the second of the two wickets to fall in the final session, the first being totally against the run of play as Nuwantha seemed to catch Padikkal in his crease with a quicker one that pitched on off stump and straightened. The left-hander defended down the wrong line as the ball beat his outside edge and crashed into off stump.
In fact, many of the wickets that Sri Lanka picked up across the day came against the run of play. KL Rahul was looking quite comfortable when he edged a lazy waft outside off, a dismissal that would be repeated by Gill later in the day off Kumara.
In between the two, Yashasvi Jaiswal had just taken Asitha for a trio of boundaries when he managed to seam one back from a good length and hit the stumps via the inside edge.
Those moments of batter peril were few and far between, as India’s batters made good on what are likely to be the best of the batting conditions.
Despite this being a recently relaid surface, the consensus at the SSC is that it’s a good pitch for batting for the first two to three days, before spin becomes a more prominent factor as the surface dries out.
So even with some live grass on the surface, Gill had little doubt in winning the toss and electing to bat. His counterpart, Dhananjaya de Silva, would have made the same decision.
While there was some early swing for both Kumara and Asitha, the introduction of Prabath Jayasuriya as early as the eighth over was telling – both in terms of how swiftly that swing disappeared and how Sri Lanka hoped to spread the workload amongst their pair of fast bowlers.
With the conditions unsuited for lengthy spells, both Kumara and Asitha bowled in spells of three to four overs at a time at most. In between, the spinners were tasked with containing as well as potentially reaping breakthroughs.
It made for pretty dour cricket for the most part, as runs were got and strike rotated with a fair amount of ease by the Indian batters. In that sense, Padikkal might not score a more straightforward century across his career, even if he was dropped twice early on.
The first was off the very first delivery he faced, slicing a drive low to Sonal Dinusha at point, who was unable to do more than get fingertips to it. The second came shortly after when he was on one, cutting at a wide ball from Keshara that flew to Dhananjaya at slip, as he could only react fast enough to palm it over.
It was a pair of opportunities that Sri Lanka will no doubt look back and lament, tough as they were.
India’s ability to find boundaries to ease any dot-ball pressure was also a hallmark of their play, finding 36 boundaries across the day. Much of this initiative unsurprisingly came from the trio Jaiswal, Padikkal and Gill.
Before his dismissal, Jaiswal at the top of the order showed good intent against the seamers, while the pair of Padikkal and Gill were extremely comfortable in using their feet against the spinners.
It was only when Sri Lanka began utilising defensive lines outside leg stump – so much so that the umpires began calling wides – that India’s scoring slowed down. And it was this change in tempo that arguably brought about the lapse in concentration to break the Gill-Padikkal stand, as the former edged a wide one.
In that sense, Sri Lanka cannot be criticised for their efforts, with skipper de Silva doing well to marshal and swap around his resources – seven bowlers were used in total – even as India had the better of the conditions.
