When Vaas had ended his first spell in the morning, many would have guessed that his task again would be to simply take the shine off the ball and hand it over to the spinners.

Vaas experience

But, with flags on the fort behind him fluttering and the sun all but gone, he struck two vital blows. First, Sachin Tendulkar couldn’t get his bat to a ball pitching on leg-stump, and then Sourav Ganguly got a delivery that all newcomers to the crease dread — a full-pitched bait outside off — and wicketkeeper Prasanna Jayawardene took a stunning one-handed catch diving to the left.

But, unquestionably, the man with the most questions in his head on Thursday would be Dravid. For the third time in this series, he got out to Mendis and for the second time in a row to the off-spin variation of the multi-skilled bowler. Just like in the second innings of the first Test, Dravid fell while playing a forward-defensive shot — the edge from the bat brushing the pad before reaching the hands of forward short-leg.

The big difference, however, was that the third-umpire had been brought into play at SSC but not at Galle. Interestingly, in case Dravid had taken things upstairs by asking for a review this time, he may have survived because the fielder Malinda Warnapura had caught the ball after it hit his helmet, which is not permitted in the laws of the game.

... contd.