Big three, small total

Colombo, August 8 : Between two 50-run partnerships, there was an eerie batting silence that summed up the day for Team India. But for the opening stand and the face-saving last-wicket heroics, the visitors wouldn’t have even managed the modest score of 249 in the Test that won’t just decide the fate of this series but perhaps even the careers of the stars who feature in the middle-order.

Batsmen with 100-plus Tests behind them haven’t looked like experienced pros but like aging men struggling to find their feet. Phenomenal batting feats by team mates or even a landslide win hasn’t been able to inspire them. These are players who have bounced back after being written off but, in this series, waiting for them to fire has been long, if not futile. When Ishant Sharma has a better batting average than Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid, somehow, optimism and patience aren’t emotions that come to mind.

The first Test failure of India’s big-three could’ve been because of a freak bowler in Ajantha Mendis or the pressure created from the other end by Muttiah Muralitharan. Since there were not many Indian batsmen in the dressing-room at SSC who were among the runs, the seniors were lost in the crowd of failures. At Galle, the applause that Virender Sehwag got was so loud that the whimper from numbers two, three and four wasn’t heard. But on a cloudy morning on Friday, there were no excuses.

Things seemed to be going by the script for India as Gautam Gambhir and Sehwag put on a healthy partnership after Kumble won the toss. The platform was set for the three to follow with their first significant contributions of the series. But that’s when debutant pacer Dammika Prasad got into rhythm.

After dismissing Sehwag with a ball that moved away, the 25-year-old wasn’t going to miss his first big date. It was an intriguing contest as the debutant with nothing to lose was having a go at stalwarts under pressure. And, as it usually happens in such contests these days, the cocky youngster got the better of the cautious seniors.

Both Dravid and Tendulkar were trapped lbw. While Dravid got a delivery that pitched outside off-stump and came in sharply, the one that got Tendulkar was pitched on middle-and-off. Even if Prasad doesn’t get any international wicket after today, he can flaunt that his first three Test wickets were that of Sehwag,...

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