Lanka 274/9 on day one

Ivan Lendl said that, about Wimbledon, that grass is strictly for the cows. One of these days, some captain is going to say it about greentops in Sri Lanka.

Or at the least, grass is strictly not for seam bowlers who do not have that extra edge of pace to blow opponents away.

Sanath Jayasuriya, seduced by the lure of grass, found that out in Galle when he put the Indians in and Sadagopan Ramesh and Shiv Sundar Das handled the conditions with ease. In Kandy, it was the turn of Saurav Ganguly to learn the same lesson.

The sight of green on the pitch, and clouds in the sky, caused Ganguly -- on winning a rare toss -- to put the opposition in.

Another green top -- this time in Kandy. Tell you what, India might be talking of preparing seaming tracks, but it is Lanka that is actually walking that thought, and that talk.

A bit of overcast, some overnight rain -- conditions calculated to seduce captains into giving their seamers an early go.

India, for the record, went in with just the one change -- the injured Javagal Srinath making way for Harvinder Singh. Sri Lanka, as befits a winning team, went in unchanged -- in the process, keeping the faith with Suresh Perera despite umpire Steve Bucknor's qualms about the all-rounder's action.

Zahir Khan and Harvinder Singh did get some early movement, the former rapping Sanath Jayasuriya repeatedly as the Lankan captain showed signs of lead in his boots.

While on Jayasuriya, it is easy to get blinded by his strokeplay, and ignore the fact that a year or so after the spectacular display in the 1996 World Cup, he began losing that hard edge to his game. In fact, counting from August 1998 onwards, Jayasuriya had a run of 21 Test innings in course of which he was out under 20 on as many as 12 occasions, and crossed 50 just once. Then came two good scores, against Pakistan and South Africa at home, followed by another slump extending to 15 innings -- ten of those sub-20, with just one 50.

The heroics of Galle notwithstanding, Jayasuriya overall is yet to get into any kind of dominant frame of mind, and that hesitation showed in his play this morning. His dismissal seemed always on the cards against Zahir, but when the wicket came, it was off a run out -- Jayasuriya flicked one to fine leg, raced the first and came charging back for the second. His partner, Atapattu, was too intent on watching the ball to respond -- Harvinder threw, Dighe relayed it to the other end, Prasad backed up well and the bails came off with Jayasuriya out of his ground by a few yards (18/1).

One Galle centurion -- Kumara Sangakkara -- replaced another. And batted in a fashion that showed he was carrying his form into this game -- the Lankan wicketkeeper-batsman is compact, easy off either foot, and drives just as well as he cuts and pulls, a combination that makes him a very difficult person to bowl to.

But the focus was really on Marvan Atapattu -- who seems to treat the Asgiriya Stadium as his personal turf, to lrd over as he wills. In nine innings here to date, he's had three centuries, two of them big doubles.

Atapattu probably knows something about batting on this deck that the others don't -- the first over of the innings saw a lovely off drive followed by a classical cover drive, and that set the tone for the rest of his batting in the morning session. His driving, in fact, was noteworthy particularly for how, with a minimum of footwork, he covered the swing and seam movement and got the ball off the middle of the bat.

The two raced to a 50 partnership off 86 balls. And yet again, India's toehold in the game seemed to be slipping, as all three seamers proved just that yard or three short of the kind of pace you want to make capital on this wicket.

Saurav Ganguly, stuck for options, bought himself on. In passing, one wonders why the sight of the slightest overcast doesn't have the Indian skipper salivating -- if you could swing the ball as late, and as much, as he can, at the kind of gentle pace he works up, and hold a line as truly as he is capable of, you'd fight anyone who tried to take the ball away from you.

Ganguly -- almost predictably -- struck. A typical delivery, angling across the left hander, hitting a good length then seaming away, had Sangakaara driving on the up. Ramesh at gully produced an action replay of the catch he had taken in Galle, flying through the air to pull off a beauty, and Sangakaara was walking back with 31 off 51 to his name.

Immediately, Ganguly brought Zahir Khan back. The left arm seamer has been bowling a touch within himself, making you wonder how painful that shin injury of his is. Here, in what was slated to be the final over before lunch, he for once slipped his leash and bowled at top pace. Atapattu -- 39 off 79 -- looked to leave one outside his off, but the extra pace meant the ball came on to hit the bat, and ricocheted onto the stumps to take Lanka in to lunch on 82/3.

Two overs before lunch, the first session seemed to belong to the home side. Two strikes in two overs -- and those, three of the most dangerous batsmen in the Lankan side -- and at lunch, India was right back in it.

Zahir Khan and Saurav Ganguly took the ball for the post-lunch session -- which was delayed for a while due to a sharp rain squall -- and tightened things up. Neither Arnold nor Jayawardene got four-balls served up to them; both seamers moved the ball around all over the place and batting looked far more difficult than it has for the Lankans thus far this series.

With the score on 91/3 and Arnold batting 2 (12 balls), Zahir made one leave the batsman late, on a full length. Arnold drove, got the edge through, Dighe held -- and the umpire decided otherwise.

Zahir had his revenge soon after, though. The change of ends seemed to have suited his bowling -- this morning, he'd gone for 20 in six overs, but once he began bowling from the opposite end, in the over just before the lunch break, he seemed a happy camper, running in easily, letting them go quite nicely and making the ball do things in the air and off the deck.

With Lanka on 101 and Arnold batting on a tentative 5 off 27 balls, Zahir hit the good length spot around off -- again. And for a change -- after a few deliveries seaming back in to set the batsman up -- moved one away. Arnold pushed tentatively, got the edge, and Dravid did the rest.

Ganguly's arrival at the bowling crease, and Zahir's inspired spell after the change of ends, made for a radically different ball game from what had gone before. And the main reason was neither the wicket, nor the atmospherics, but the fact that both bowlers stuck to the basic discipline of bowling one side of the wicket, without straying.

The result -- the first hour after lunch produced just 26 runs off 13.3 overs for the loss of Arnold. Ganguly's figures read 9-3-20-1, while Zahir had figures in his second spell of 7-3-16-2.

Once Ganguly and Zahir made way for Prasad and Harvinder, the grip slackened somewhat -- and again, the question of sticking to basics came up, as both Harvinder and Prasad tended to stray. By way of illustration, the first six overs by those two yielded 30 runs.

The wicket -- of Hashan Tillekeratne -- in fact came against the run of play. Prasad bowled very wide of off, Tillekeratne (10 off 32) flashed, and edged through to Dighe behind the stumps to have Lanka 138/5.

Without Jayasuriya's initial explosion to power them along, the rest of the Lankan batsmen seemed out of sorts -- with the honourable exception, that is, of Mahela Jayawardene. A batsman who has in the past earned a reputation of taking it too easy and doing less than justice to his enormous talent, Jayawardene for once settled into sensible batting mode. He played the ball on merit, shrugged off the pressure of tight bowling and showed to his best advantage in the speed with which he picked up even the slightest lapse in length, and the decisiveness with which he put such deliveries away.

His 11th Test 50 came in the 45th over off just 72 deliveries in a team score of 152/5 -- a measure of his contribution to the Lankan effort.

Harbhajan got his first over in the 47th. Which might seem inordinately late, but I'd reckon Ganguly got that one right -- the heavy outfield and the fact that the ball didn't take much of a battering meant it stayed newer and shinier than usual, and there really wasn't enough turn in the grassy first day wicket to justify an earlier entry for the offie.

Lanka went in to tea on 167/5 off 52 overs -- thanks largely to Jayawardene, unbeaten at that stage on 61 off 98 balls, with a hesitant Suresh Perera keeping him company.

Ganguly stuck to the plan that had worked for him in the second session -- opening the bowling with Zahir Khan for company. The Indian skipper, unused to long spells, seemed however to be stiffening up, with the result that his length suffered -- as did his analysis, with Jayawardene taking advantage with a series of back foot shots either side of the square.

But it was Ganguly who provided the breakthrough, when he took out Suresh Perera (18 off 31 balls). Putting a lot more effort into that ball, Ganguly got it on a length, just outside off and angling in just enough to hit the pad right in front of off and middle (189/6 Lanka). The wicket was badly needed -- the 6th wicket partnership had put on 51 runs in just 13 overs, and seemed in a good way to hauling Lanka out of jail.

With that, the last recognised batsman was gone, and Jayawardene, 72 off 116 at that point and batting in an altogether different zone, was reduced to shepherding the tail. Different batsmen have different ways of doing that -- some grind it out, defending dourly, taking singles off the last ball to shield their partners, and generally concentrate on attritive accumulation. Jayawardene's way was the more direct -- a flat-out assault on the bowlers, opening his shoulders in a blistering display of shot-making. If his play till then was characterised by forcing shots off the back foot square of the wicket, Jayawardene in this post-tea session launched into booming drives off the front foot.

A sweep-pull off Harbhajan for four to midwicket in the 67th over brought up Jayawardene's 6th Test century -- 103 off 144 balls, with 106 dot balls, 12 singles and 17 fours -- out of a team total of 231/6, which gives you a measure of his domination.

Prasad produced one of those increasingly rare leg cutters that were once a feature of his bowling -- perfect line, correct length, movement just late enough to draw Jayawardene (104 runs, 149 balls, Lanka 232/7), into the defensive push away from his body, for the edge through to the keeper.

Ganguly's captaincy was impressive. Spotting that the conditions were giving Harbhajan very little to work with, he stuck to seam against the tail. Harvinder, expensive against the established batsmen, did his part with a full length delivery that snuck under Muralitharan's flailing bat to crash into the base of off stump, to reduce Lanka to 245/8.

The contrasting characters of the two teams came into view in this session. Sri Lanka is blessed in that there is always someone or other willing to put his hand up and do what needs doing -- and here, it was Vaas (42 not out off 61 balls) who decided to fill the vacuum at the batting crease, while the rest of the tail focussed on just hanging around at the other end. India, for its part, tried to take out the tail -- and at the first sign that it wasn't like taking Kandy from a kid (Yuck, atrocious pun, but hey, it is late evening of a long day, excuse it please), the team's collective shoulders sagged and the ideas dried up. With the result that the lower half of the Lankan lineup added valuable runs and, in the process, undid all the good work India had done till that point.

It was left to Zahir to return and take out number nine -- an angled delivery slanting across Dilhara Fernando (4 off 24) had the tailender feathering it through to the keeper.

Bad light stopped play with 12 overs left to bowl, and Lanka relatively comfortable on 274/9. From a bowling point of view, the real disappointment was Harvinder Singh -- who, despite the conditions, came across as a touch short on pace and equally, lacking in the ability to move the ball away off the seam to the extent that can cause problems for the batsmen. Zahir Khan among the regulars, and Ganguly among the non-regulars, were the standouts -- and both had this in common that, given helpful conditions, they didn't go overboard but focussed on line and length and let the ball and the conditions do the rest of the work for them.