Dilshan stars in Sri Lankan reply

What Rahul Dravid did for India yesterday, Tillakaratne Dilshan did for Sri Lanka today. The only difference was, he did it at the top of the order, before any collapse had happened. Otherwise, their knocks were similar in nature. There was no false shot from Dilshan and he scored at what, even by his standards, was a very rapid pace for a Test match. The end result was that he got 112 as he powered Sri Lanka on towards a safe total. The day started badly for India. Due to recent performances, it is almost expected that the Indian tail will wag at least in the first innings. However, that was not to be today, as the Sri Lankan bowlers kept things tight and didn't allow the tail to add valuable runs. The initial breakthrough was provided by yesterday's hero - Welegedera - who snared another big fish - in the context of the match, the biggest fish of them all - in Rahul Dravid. Dravid was dismissed without adding to his overnight score as Welegedera sneaked one through his bat and pad. Harbhajan and Zaheer tried to hang around and hit a couple of good shots, but Zaheer was given lbw to a marginal decision against Herath and Harbhajan fell trying an ill-advised reverse sweep against Muralitharan. Murali outfoxed Ishant Sharma four balls later to wrap up the innings at 426. It was a total India would have been reasonably satisfied with, given the way the innings started, but they would have also felt slightly inadequate given how the pitch had eased out.

That feeling was reinforced when Sri Lanka's openers came out to bat. Although Zaheer Khan breathed fire, they were able to weather the storm as they set about building a platform. As was to be expected, Dilshan was the more aggressive off the two, but not by too much. They matched India in the run-rate department, keeping theirs above four, just like India had done. It was Ishant Sharma who finally got a breakthrough when he induced an outside edge and saw Dhoni fling himself to his left to pluck a brilliant catch. The openers had put on 74 runs to set Sri Lanka on their way. Captain Sangakkara walked out to join the free-scoring Dilshan, and they kept up the tempo established by the first wicket partnership. Dilshan, in particular, upped the ante even more and Sri Lanka went in to tea at 155/1. The final session saw a brief revival from India, but it came after Dilshan had completed his tenth Test match hundred off just 120 balls.

Zaheer Khan then struck for India in successive overs to first get Dilshan and then remove Sangakkara. Both batsmen were undone by the short ball, and both had attempted unwise shots against the bouncer. It was a just reward for Zaheer, who looked in fine form in his first match since a long layoff. With both set batsmen gone, it was upto Samaraweera and Mahela Jayawardene to stitch together another partnership so that the initiative stayed with Sri Lanka and on a good batting pitch, they did just that. They were unseparated until the close of play, having put on 81 valuable runs. After the wickets of Dilshan and Sangakkara, India would have sniffed a chance at victory if they could have got some more wickets quickly, but both Samaraweera and Jayawardene played with composure to give their team a good chance of getting close to, or overhauling India's total. At close of play Sri Lanka were 275/3, still trailing India by 151 runs, but with two set batsmen at the crease and some batting to follow on a pitch that doesn't have much for the bowlers, they would be very happy with their performance in the day. India will be looking to make the most of the start tomorrow, since the start of the day has been the only time that bowlers seemed to have got something out of the pitch. On both days so far, India have lost wickets in the first hour and they would be hoping that the same holds true tomorrow.