MUMBAI: Enforcing the follow-on is never an easy decision. Unless the opposition is bundled out inside 50 overs, most Test captains are averse to make the call as it challenges them to extract the best from their tiring bowlers.
On Wednesday, during Day 4 of the second Test at Colombo’s Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, skipper Shubman Gill was left to make this tough decision to enforce the follow-on after bowling out Sri Lanka for 290, the hosts folding up 213 runs behind.
India’s bowlers had toiled for 89.4 overs in the first innings and it was tough to return to work straightaway. After such a workload, most modern Test captains prefer to give their bowlers a break and unleash them fresh.
To add to India’s challenge, there was not as much wear and tear on the pitch. It was still good for batting. Spinners adjust better to the extra workload but India’s slow bowlers were not really on top in the first innings.
But in his push for a win, Gill didn’t have much choice. It was Day 4 and rain interruptions were expected to cause some loss of play.
The way Sri Lanka came out with a clear gameplan in their second essay, captain Gill had reasons to doubt if his bowlers had enough in the tank to finish the game.
The home team batters did not just provide resistance, they played with positive intent to give India a scare. Scoring at 3.77 runs an over, at lunch they had set up a good platform at 83/2 in 22 overs.
The hosts exceeded expectations in the second session, racing to 199/3 in 56 overs at tea. With No.3 batter Pasindu Sooriyabandara set on 90 (10×4, 1×6), Sri Lanka trailed by just 14 runs, raising hopes among the home crowd of getting the chance to set India a target to chase in the fourth innings.
It was a period when Gill’s captaincy was really tested. For some inexplicable reason, he went on the defensive. Instead of attacking, he set fields to stop the run flow.
Seeing Sooriyabandara tame their main spin threat, Manav Suthar, who had gone wicketless at that stage for figures of 15-1-69-0, Gill set a defensive field. The left-arm spinner kept bowling at him outside the leg stump from round the wicket with a packed leg side field.
India’s most successful pacer of the first innings, Prasidh Krishna, also operated with a leg-side field set for a miscued pull shot.
There were some other surprising tactics. There was an over when keeper Rishabh Pant, who showed no signs of discomfort from the wrist injury, was standing up to Mohammed Siraj.
To the relief of the dressing room, the tide turned after tea as Suthar provided a double strike. Four balls after he was hit for a straight six by Dhananjaya de Silva, Suthar had the Sri Lanka captain caught in the slips — he tried to push to the vacant leg side but the ball ricocheted off the back thigh to give a bat-pad catch on the off-side cordon.
In his next over, Suthar pounced on a reckless charge by Sooriyabandara, on 92.
Seeing him step out, Suthar cleverly floated the ball wide at the last moment without any change in arm rotation and Pant was quick to complete the stumping.
It was a decisive moment for India. Sri Lanka were down to 212/5, still trailing by one run. Sooriyabandara, who scored 80 in the first innings, again missed out on his century.
Till then, the No.3 batter had not put a foot wrong. On the previous ball, he was given out leg before playing a sweep shot, but reviewed and got it reversed as he had nicked on to the pad.
Niroshan Dickwella didn’t last long, trapped leg before by debutant off-spinner Saransh Jain, who has taken two late wickets in the first innings.
Soon afterwards, rain brought an early end to play with Sri Lanka tottering at 229/6.
Sri Lanka’s player of the series, Sonal Dinusha, is still there but the first innings centurion faces an impossible task to stop India from a clean sweep. Going into the last day of the series the hosts are effectively 16/6.
The three wickets in the post-tea session undid the brilliant work of the Sri Lanka batters in the post-lunch session. Despite trailing for so long in the game, they had turned things around through a 116-run partnership between Sooryabandara and Kamindu Mendis.
Apart from Suthar’s late breakthroughs, the other highlight of India’s bowling performance was the short ball tactics. When India was struggling for ideas, Prasidh again provided a big breakthrough by getting Mendis caught off a miscued pull shot. At the start of the innings, Mohammed Siraj nailed a bouncer to dismiss opener Lahiru Udara.
