Vaas gains a measure of Indians

Of course, there are those already suggesting that Sachin Tendulkar will become the sole holder of most Test centuries scored, which he has already equalled – 34 and jointly held by former Indian captain and opening batsman Sunil Gavaskar. That could be, but crystal ball-gazing can be a dangerous occupation. Rather concentrate on fact than, maybe, fantasy.

Vaas bowled with superb line and skill and as middle-order batsman Mahela Jayawardene said, the Sri Lankans picked up a few valuable lessons in the rain-wrecked practice outing at Bangalore. One was the length to bowl; the second was patience. It was all a matter of application and forcing the batsmen into making errors.

Well, this worked wonders for the tourists who were thankful to get onto the field and apply a little of what they learnt in Bangalore and what practice they managed at home.

Gautam Gambhir was forced into misreading a delivery — the 13th ball of the innings — and was bowled by one that skidded through.

The pitch is not one on which to drive, with bounce creating problems and the slow pace adding to the batsmen’s problems. India might feel happy with a score line of 90 for two and skipper Rahul Dravid resuming at 30. But the way Vaas was bowling was encouraging for the Sri Lankans.

In a sense, this is important for Vaas as he used his experience to good effect and had the Indian batsmen hurrying their strokes. But when you look at the figures of Dilhara Fernando, whose second spell was from the same V Pattabhiraman Gate end of the venue, it was much tighter. It gave the impression that it was the best end from which the swing bowlers should work.

That Vaas ended the day with two for 15 off 10 overs shows just how his tight line and length troubled the batsmen who faced him. There was some good in-swing as well as cutters bowled with clever variation. It was also interesting to notice the position of wicketkeeper Kumar Sangakkara when keeping to Vaas when Gambhir was bowled. It was a good indication of how the pitch was playing. It also showed what a class act Vaas is in such circumstances.

Muralitharan was tight and his accuracy was as expected, but he was not going to trouble the Indian batsmen and this they would have noticed. Mind you, the pitch had been covered for almost 10 days because of the weather and it was understandable that it was going to be slow with irregular bounce. Certainly not enough to help the spinners.

Jayawardene said the practice outing and their own pre-match discussions had in some ways gone according to plan. It had been frustrating waiting around so long to start a game, knowing that about four and-a-half extended sessions were all that would be available.

What Sri Lanka need to do now is keep bowling with the same patience they displayed during their 32.3 overs on what had been a seriously shortened first day (day four) of this series.