AHMEDABAD, Nov 17: Tillakaratne Dilshan produced a scintillating century as Sri Lanka put up a spirited batting display to leave the first Test against India evenly poised at the end of the second day on Tuesday.
After polishing off the remaining four wickets in quick time to restrict India to 426 in the first innings, the in-form Dilshan (112) took centrestage with a fine exhibition of strokeplay to steer the islanders to a comfortable 275/3 at close on the second day.
Dilshan notched up his 10th Test century — and the fifth this year — to lay the foundation for a strong Lankan reply in excellent batting conditions at the Motera stadium which again saw more than 300 runs being scored.
Mahela Jayawardene (36) and Thilan Samaraweera (45) were at the crease at stumps with the visitors still trailing the hosts by 151 runs.
Earlier, resuming at the score of 385/6, India lost their last four wickets for 41 runs and were all out soon after the first drinks break to allow the visitors to claw their way back into the game.
Captain Kumar Sangakkara (31) and young opener Tharanga Paranavitana (35) got the starts but could not translate those into big knocks, falling to injudicious shots.
Pacer Zaheer Khan struck twice in quick succession by evicting Dilshan and Sangakkara in the last session with short-pitched deliveries to bring India back into the game but Jayawardene and Samaraweera ensured that there were no further setbacks.
The morning session turned out to be quite disappointing for the hosts who could not really carry on the good work and saw the remaining four wickets fall without much resistance.
Left arm swing bowler Chanaka Welegedara got the important breakthrough early in the morning by getting rid of the well-set and ominous-looking Rahul Dravid at his overnight score of 177.
Dravid, looking all set to score his sixth double hundred, fell to the 10th ball he faced without any addition to his overnight score. He dragged a ball from Welegedara on to his stumps while trying to drive on the front foot.
In all, the Bangalore stalwart batted for 19 minutes over six hours, faced 261 balls and struck 26 fours and a six.
Dravid’s departure just a quarter hour into day two dashed India’s hopes of taking the score to the 500 mark.
Harbhajan Singh (22), not out 2 on Monday evening, and Zaheer Khan (12) put on a brief stand worth 25 runs, but it was just a matter of time before they fell.
Zaheer, who was felled by a beamer from fast medium bowler Dammika Prasad after having struck two successive fours with slashes off the right-arm bowler, was trapped leg before when he played back to left arm spinner Rangana Herath.
The pace bowler’s dismissal came soon after India crossed the 400-mark in the 96th over just past the half hour.
Harbhajan, who played some good drives off the pace bowlers, was castled by Muttiah Muralitharan while trying to reverse sweep the wily off spinner who then accounted for last man Ishant Sharma in the same over to bring down curtains on the Indian innings.
Harbhajan’s stay of 83 minutes yielded him two fours in 64 balls. Amit Mishra remained unbeaten on 7.
For Lanka, left armer Welegedara grabbed the bowling honours, claiming 4/87 — the prized scalps being those of Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, all on Monday, and Dravid.
Muralitharan, snapped up 3/97, taking two wickets on Tuesday for seven runs in 23 balls, while Prasad, who was not shy of using bumpers and got a warning for the beamer bowled at Zaheer, picked up 2/106. Herath took the remaining wicket.
Lankan openers Dilshan and Paranavitana then prevented the home team from creating an early breakthrough before lunch.
The only wicket that the visitors lost in the post-lunch session was that of young left-hander Tharanga Paranavitana (35), who edged Ishant Sharma to wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni who caught it brilliantly one-handed by diving to the left in front of first slip Sachin Tendulkar.
Paranavitana, who looked hardly in trouble with Dilshan, was lured by a ball angled away from him and took the edge of his bat. He and his opening partner added 74 runs in quick time and Paranavitana hit six fours in his 55-ball knock.
This was the lone success for the Indian bowlers in the session between lunch and tea that yielded 118 runs in 26 overs.
Runs came at a brisk pace as the Lankans added 55 runs in 12 overs in the first post-lunch hour of play for Paranavitana’s wicket and then 63 runs without losing a wicket in 14 overs till tea.
Dilshan, who has scored four centuries and over 900 runs this year, drove powerfully to the off side and played very few false strokes.
Both the pre-lunch and post-lunch sessions belonged to the visitors as they first fought back since yesterday’s position and dismissed the last four Indian wickets for only 41 runs Tuesday morning.
Scorecard
India: first innings (overnight 385/6) Gautam Gambhir b Welegedara 1; Virender Sehwag lbw b Welegedara 16; Rahul Dravid b Welegedara 177; Sachin Tendulkar b Welegedara 4; VVS Laxman b Prasad 0; Yuvraj Singh c Dilshan b Muralitharan 68; Mahendra Singh Dhoni c Jayawardene b Prasad 110; Harbhajan Singh b Muralitharan 22; Zaheer Khan lbw Herath 12; Amit Mishra not out 7; Ishant Sharma st Prasanna b Muralitharan 0
Extras (b 2, lb 2, w 1, nb 4) 9
Total (all out in 104.5 overs) 426
Fall of wickets 1-14 (Gambhir, 2.5 overs), 2-27 (Sehwag, 6.1), 3-31 (Tendulkar, 6.4), 4-32 (Laxman, 7.4), 5-157 (Yuvraj, 36.1), 6-381 (Dhoni, 87.1), 7-389 (Dravid, 92.4), 8-414 (Khan, 101.2), 9-426 (Harbhajan, 104.1)
Bowling: Chanaka Welegedara 22-4-87-4 Dammika Prasad 22-1-106-2 Angelo Mathews 12-1-50-0 Muttiah Muralitharan 25.5-4-97-3 Rangana Herath 22-2-79-1 Tillakaratne Dilshan 1-0-3-0
Sri Lanka: first innings
Tillekaratane Dilshan c Dravid b Khan 112; Tharanga Paranavitana c Dhoni b Sharma 35; Kumar Sangakkara c Tendulkar b Khan 31; Mahela Jayawardene batting 36; Thilan Samaraweera batting 45
Extras (lb 5, w 2, nb 9) 16
Total (for three wickets in 70 overs) 275
Fall of wickets 1-74 (Paranavitana, 16.5 overs), 2-189 (Dilshan, 43.1), 3-194 (Sangakkara, 45.3)
Bowling: Zaheer Khan 15-2-45-2; Ishant Sharma 14-0-53-1; Harbhajan Singh 20-2-72-0; Amit Mishra 18-0-89-0 (3nb) Yuvraj Singh 3-0-11-0 (PTI)
