Top priority for India

Sri Lanka is a country where India last won a series in 1993 under Mohammad Azharuddin. Incidentally,that game was at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC),where the second Test gets underway from Monday. This series wasn’t part of India’s itinerary for the year but was added in order to allow the team to play as many Tests as possible in order to defend their top spot.

But the Sri Lankans haven’t turned out to be easy pickings. India next host Australia at home in a Test series and,given the highly competitive nature of the rivalry between the two sides,it will be far from a cakewalk for India. So it will be vital that India win one of the next two Tests.

If Sri Lanka win this series 2-0,they will take over as the best side in the world and India will drop to joint No. 2,along with South Africa. What will make this contest even harder for the visitors is that the hosts haven’t lost a Test match at the SSC in nearly six years.

Silent bats

Having travelled here with a weak attack,the team will be hoping more than one of their experienced batsmen make hundreds on the SSC track,greener than the one at Galle but known to turn indifferent to the bowlers after the first session of the first day. But,for all their runs and experience,the top order hasn’t fired in Sri Lanka in a decade.

None among Sachin Tendulkar,Rahul Dravid or VVS Laxman,for that matter,has scored a century on Sri Lankan soil since the turn of the century. Only Virender Sehwag,with a double hundred at Galle and a century in the first innings of the first Test this series,at the same venue,has reached the three-figure mark,with Sadagopan Ramesh and Rahul Dravid in 1999 during the Asian Test championships being the others.

The last time India’s No.1 ranking was under threat,Sehwag,Tendulkar,Dhoni and Laxman made centuries in Kolkata against South Africa and India didn’t have to bat again.

Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara doesn’t think rankings reflect the right picture. “If rankings can’t be understood by the players,public or the administrators what is the use of having rankings. If you want rankings they should count towards playing a Test championship,” Sangakkara said the other day. But his angst was more to do with a skewed Future Tours Programme,which has seen Sri Lanka play a lot of their Test cricket at home or against India in the past two years. Now within a shot of the No.1 position,he wouldn’t mind how the ranking system works.

On the eve of the second Test,Dhoni was realistic about the possibility of losing the top spot. “If we lose it we will try to get it back. It is not that once you reach the top that place belongs to you,” Dhoni said.

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