Partnership firm: Cheteshwar Pujara & Ajinkya Rahane

This is the longest they have batted together — Pujara usually tags along with Murali Vijay and Rahane with Virat Kohli. Not that they haven’t wriggled India out of emergencies in the past—the most glaring proof was their 118-run association in Bangalore, in the second innings against Australia on a spiteful pitch (to put it mildly) combating a bowling firm more purposeful and persistent that the three-pronged Sri Lanka’s spin attack. The latter was series defining; this one could turn out to be one, though the conditions were considerably less hostile than it was in Bangalore.

But when Rahane joined Pujara, shortly after lunch India were not in a strife, but still in a spot of bother. Sri Lanka had dislodged a fluent KL Rahul and an in-form Virat Kohli. Rangana Herath had settled into a sinister rhythm; the setting up of Kohli was high art. Usually, in such fine mood, he scythes through batting line-ups.

The close-in fielders formed a nice background score, amping up their decibels, clapping their hands at anything and lunging themselves on the ground. It was perhaps the only passage in the entire series so far that they’d looked fired-up and dominant. If they could nail one of them, they stood chance to run through the rest. However, for 51 overs, their wish remained just a wish, as they ran into two of India’s most resolute batsmen around, a pair that was as impregnable as it was indomitable.

What makes them most difficult to trouble, when in such good knick, is that they offer few chances. Pujara gave one when he was on one, but his soft hands ensured it fell beyond the grasp of Angelo Mathews, and another that flew past the short-leg’s futile clasp towards the lunch. Likewise, Rahane offered a more straightforward to the short-leg when he was on 88. But other that, they largely looked untroubled and hardly have the hosts even a sniff of a chance.

Killing them softly

They don’t pulverise bowlers to submission, with a flurry of boundaries or outlandish strokes, like Shikhar Dhawan or to a lesser extent Kohli. They rather exhaust them, with their subtle, nuanced deception — a single here, a two there, an occasional boundary or six off a gift-wrapped ball. Even the big strokes are not instinctive whims, but carefully-devised plans to dishevel a bowler’s plan. They don’t set the scoreboard in a frenzy, but would tax the scorers as much as the bludgeoners for they keep the scorecard ticking along.

But they are not identical—as is the popular perception—not in temperament, nor technique, nor strokes, nor scoring pattern either. It might be that they don’t exude that imposing bravura as some of their other teammates. As they showed numerous times in the course of their partnership, they are cut from a different cloth. Instructive in where they’d made their runs on Thursday. As many as 60 off Pujara’s runs were hoarded between square leg and long-on. He would either stay back to the spinner and blunt him midwicket or come forward and smother them through mid-on.

It was the inverse in Rahane’s case—the space between point and mid on fetching him 52 runs. He would instinctively drive anything marginally fuller through the offside. A classic example of their contrasting styles was how they faced left-arm spinner Malinda Pushpakumara.

Pujara hung back on the back foot, unless it was really full. He would tuck and tickle him away through the leg-side. Rahane almost always met him full and on a few instances pulled out the sweep as well. A stroke that Pujara hardly ventures. Pujara was all flicks and wrists; Rahane was all drives and punches. Even when the latter cuts, he does it in front of point, unlike Pujara who plays the cuts fine, in a rather old-fashioned way, especially the flourish and how his front-leg too goes prominently across.

While Pujara scored 21 runs behind backward point, Rahane scored not a single run. Pujara is the classicist; Rahane the moderatist.

Temperamentally also they are different. Pujara is as old-worldish as you can get these days, at least in the early half of his innings. Rahane is more enterprising. He was just four balls old when whipped Herath from off-stump over midwicket. It was a risk-fraught stroke, as Herath can sometimes skid the ball into the batsman. But it was trademark Rahane. Pujara would have never ventured such a stroke at any point of the match. He could have just offered a dead-defensive blade.

Pujara’s knocks conform to a general pattern—vigilance till he reaches the 30s, before he gathers impetus. Rahane’s is a steadier tempo. Pujara ate up 112 balls to reach his half-century.

Rahane absorbed only 83 balls. But Pujara’s next 50 took only 51 deliveries, Rahane’s came off 67 balls. The only thread of sameness is perhaps that they don’t ooze the look-at-me machismo of their peers or even the cricket world at large.