Rain puts India, Lanka under one umbrella

India’s decision to switch their batting tactics with the left-hander Dinesh Mongia opening with Virender Sehwag and Tendulkar at three was not given a chance to formulate any particular plan. Apart from Chaminda Vaas going up in a confident appeal to the first ball Tendulkar faced, the Mumbai maestro did not give the impression that he enjoyed his new place in the order.

Sanath Jayasuriya was quick to defend the switch in Sri Lanka’s tactics with Kumar Sangakkara opening the batting. Apart from the slowness of the pitch, the argument was that Sangakkara usually batted well against the fast bowlers and the harder ball.

There was always the feeling of the inevitable as the hype of the initial final day lacked the vibrancy of the afternoon and early evening of the day before. Just how much this was all in the mind of the officials or spectators is hard to imagine. The air was always one of an anti-climax, exacerbated by the first-ball dismissal of Sanath Jayasuriya.

The left-hander drove at Zaheer Khan’s delivery and playing the wrong line, he edged it into his stumps. It was quite a comedown for the Sri Lankan captain, who after winning the toss for the second consecutive time, took Sangakkara in with him to open the innings while Atapattu was moved to three. It might have been an experiment to see whether the pair was more adventurous than the tired-looking effort which Atapattu gives on occasions. With Jayasuriya’s early exit it was not given a chance to prosper. Whether they will experiment with it further on their South African tour in November is up to the team management.

If Jayasuriya was wondering about his early departure, Atapattu’s demise after half an hour pottering around was just as uncomfortable for the locals to stomach. Two wickets had fallen and all hopes of possibly building a match-winning total was starting to slip away. Even the local rendition of the Tijuana Brass became discordant as the jive went out of the crowd which had been building up most of the afternoon.

There were some blazing strokeplay from De Silva as well. It was the sort of cameo which made the Indian attack look second rate, well, certainly Ajit Agarkar. He handed out a batting lesson which Agarkar should remember: the bowler was dropping the ball into the wrong area as well his arc and allowing the batsman to dominate.

It was some nifty wristwork as well; one of the five boundaries were to fine leg, there was a second that was clipped past square leg and the next through midwicket. The crowd, which had been groaning in agony discovered there was something to cheer about as he cover drove and then unfurled a dashing rapier like cut to finish off the over.

With twenty-three runs coming off the over the runrate began a rapid climb. De Silva’s approach not only put Agarkar in his place, it created as many problems for Ganguly as the TV ads do for the viewers trying to fathom out details of statistics.

Perhaps almost as steamed up as did Ganguly over an incident with Arnold which led to a verbal fracas and the intervention of the two umpires, first David Shepherd and Steve Bucknor. Ganguly’s objection was to Arnold running on pitch in the danger area.

India’s captain had a fair argument in this case and wanted to make a point as batsmen are inclined to forget (or do they?) how turning so sharply can help the spinner. It was an unsightly wrangle which simmered for most of the over. The score at the time was 152 and the partnership with Jayawardene, which had rescued the innings from falling apart, had been in progress since the seventeenth over.

As it is Jayawardene needed to put an innings of substance together. He had few opportunities in the series and the way he sold a dummy to Sangakkara suggested he was not aware of where the fielder was or the danger his partner was in.

At seventy-one for four the innings was in trouble and for a change it gave Arnold a chance to put a solid half-century together. It was a gritty partnership and the 118 off 173 balls displayed the sort of commitment which had been missing and while Jayawardene worked stylishly towards the half-century, Arnold worked hard and cut out the fancy stuff. It was a time to put the needs of the side and survival first.(TheWicket.Com)