In between their net session at the Sinhalese Sports Club, a few Sri Lankan players peeked through the wall to have a look at the Indians playing a warm-up game at the Nondescript Cricket Club ground next door. Early wickets had left the Lankan Board President XI at 22 Disappointed by the performance of the fringe players, the inquisitive Lankans returned to the nets with the prediction that the pitch at the NCC would ease up after lunch — as has been the case at the SSC, where the first Test starts on Wednesday.They got it right as a 100-run partnership between Thilina Kadamby and Chamara Silva took the score to 182 for 4. But had the Lankans peeped back into the NCC at the end of day’s play, they would have been surprised by the fact that the Indian bowlers had fashioned a comeback of sorts to dismiss the locals for 224. But for the minor blip — Gautam Gambhir falling to a fine catch quite early — the Indians had pretty much a perfect outing on their first match-day in Sri Lanka. Though not much should be read into performances in a tour game, there were enough positives to put Indian skipper Anil Kumble in a good mood.More than his own three late wickets, Kumble would’ve been happy seeing Zaheer Khan pick up two in his first spell. Questions were being raised about the left-arm paceman’s match-fitness, but Zaheer charged in with purpose and found his rhythm.With several rain interruptions making things difficult for the bowlers to sustain any sort of momentum, Zaheer eased up in the latter part of the game. But his first spell of 7-2-11-2 had the Board President XI’s frontline batsmen struggling. Zaheer had pace, got the ball to carry and, with his precise movement, had openers Upul Tharanga and Mahela Udawatte on the hop. Ishant Sharma, operating at the other end, was impressive too and there was no respite for the batsmen. Munaf Patel bowled well in patches, but it will be tough for him to challenge Ishant for a place in the playing XI when the first Test begins. Speaking about his bowling Zaheer said, “It was good to bowl on a fresh wicket. The conditions were good, there was some nice cloud cover with a bit of breeze and all that worked in our favour.” The biggest gain for the Indians today was the way in which they stuck to the task during the 100-run partnership. All through the Test series, the Indians will face similar situations against a strong Lankan batting line-up. On Friday, they showed they had it in them to apply sustained pressure that they will need to break partnerships.
