Between overs, as Ravichandran Ashwin lumbered back to fine leg, where he was stationed, he would occasionally rehearse his action and snap his fingers. It was conceivable why he looked fidgety. He was getting nothing out of the slothful surface. It wasn't the ideal surface for Ashwin to weave his deception. There was neither turn nor bounce. There was no ominous roughs or encouraging curls of dust. The ball was getting torn, the sun was pelting unrelentingly. But Ashwin has, in his remarkable season at home last year, has shown that he's was no longer condition-reliant. He doesn't require dust-spitting, crack-laden snake-pits to get wickets. Ashwin started by trying to set the batsman up with a few full deliveries outside the off-stump, bringing the batsman forward and then slipping in the straighter one Then suddenly he bowled one slower through the air, fuller and luring the batsman to the drive. It worked once, when Dickwella lunged forward and drove uppishly to Abhinav Mukund's back. But never after it. The fuller balls weren't coming often enough. Meanwhile, the Lankan batsmen hung back, pushed and nudged the ball for a single or two. Bowling full would have been a wiser ploy on a surface with indifferent bounce, as the batsman would be doubt-ridden as which one would snort through or leap up. But as it was, the surface was dreadfully slow, where bowling at stumps hardly reaped any rewards. A wiser option would have been to tease them with flight. But somehow he couldn't. He would toss the ball, not flight it. The downward arc was missing. Instead, most of the balls ended up as plain half-volleys, which they smothered without much difficulty. He would occasionally bowl the carrom ball or the leg break, but the change in action clearly telegraphed his intent. Perhaps, he had to unlearn what he had learned from here in the last trip, where while observing Rangan Herath he realised that it's wiser to bowl at the stumps in Sri Lanka. But the surfaces last time round was more spiteful. Or else, he could have looked at how well Ravindra Jadeja had accosted to the conditions. Jadeja was cleverly mixing up his lengths and pace. He made them come forward more often, and beat them in the flight. It confused them, for if they came forward he might beat them in the flight, if they stood back his missile slider could snake into the pads. His reputation clearly preceded him. So there always was a strain of uncertainty about Jadeja. Batsmen would often be in two minds. Strangely, though, Kohli replaced Jadeja for Mohammed Shami, while Ashwin switched to over the stumps, from where he operated at a leg-stumpish line. Again, it would have been a practical ploy if the ball was breaking away viciously across them. But as it wasn't, they were merely deliveries that landed on their pads with a thank-you wink. Post-tea resurgence The Ashwin on evidence after the tea interval was a different man. Though the drift he managed was minimal, he began playing tricks with his lengths. He would mostly toss it up on the off-stump, before pulling one a little back, maybe by a few inches. It irritated, than troubled, Dickwella, who attempted an impetuous sweep, only to find that the ball was not as full and bounced more than he had anticipated. The ensuing top-edge was gobbled up. Emboldened by the arrival of a right-hander - somehow in this series he has seemed more menacing against the righties, as opposed to the conventional wisdom-he regained his spunk, dislodged the stodgy Karunaratne with a delivery similar in trajectory to Dickwella and walked off his 50th Test with a triumphant gait.
