India crumble after good start

'We need to work on our consistency, when we win we seem to win big, but we are also losing big at the wrong time.'

That was Dav Whatmore, speaking of the Sri Lankan outfit he coaches. It could as well have been John Wright, speaking of the Indians he is in charge of.

Yet again, the Indian team gave its fans reason to marvel at how rapidly -- and without obvious reasons -- they can switch from the sublime to the seemingly ridiculous.

If the pitches at Galle and Kandy had looked like a hungry cow's idea of a lavish buffet, the one at the Sinhalese Sports Club rolled out truer, with only a faint hint of grass -- prompting analysts to infer that the wicket would be best for batting on the first couple of days, with increasing turn as the game wore on.

Both sides reflected that feeling, with the Lankans bringing in Thilan Samaraweera to supplement Muthiah Muralitharan's spin, while the Indians rested Harvinder Singh and opted for Sairaj Bahutule.

Sourav Ganguly did the team proud by winning the toss for the second time in succession and promptly opting to bat first. A positive move, despite the threat of some early life on the wicket, since it meant the Indians had the opportunity to put up a good total, then pressure the Lankans with spin.

Shiv Sundar Das and Sadagopan Ramesh then stitched together an opening partnership in stark contrast to what has gone thus far. India in the first two Tests has tended to duck and cower against the seam of Chaminda Vaas and Dilhara Fernando. On this occasion, Dulip Liyanage came in to reinforce the pace attack and took the new ball alongside Vaas, but neither opener allowed the bowlers to get on top.

Ramesh appears to have learnt a lesson from all those selectorial discussions, in recent times, about searching for other openers. On this tour, he has been content to cut out the more flamboyant of his shots and focus on crease occupancy and on guiding the ball around to get his runs. That trend continued here.

The dimunitive Das, for his part, has been defense oriented in recent outings -- this time round, he changed things around with a series of fluent drives and one whiplash pull that halted the Lankan pacemen in their tracks.

The defining moment of the morning session though came when Muthiah Muralitharan, introduced in the second hour of play, was greeted by Das with successive boundaries, and a calculated assault that yielded 28 runs off just 8 overs.

Das, who got the lion's share of the strike, brought up his personal half-century off 90 deliveries, and took India in to lunch on 91/0 off 30 overs, at a healthy 3.03 runs per over. You had to say, at that point, that India was off to an ominously fluid start, and had played the first session dead right.

Traditionally, post-lunch sessions are supposed to be the best for batting. But against that, India has not often had two successive good sessions, and today was no exception -- 30 overs between lunch and tea producing 64 runs at 2.13 rpo for the loss of four wickets.

It all began with Das's dismissal -- a rush of blood that triggered a mini-slide. The opener, who seemed intent on his self-imposed mission of dominating Muralitharan, went down the track to a ball that was flatter and quicker through the air than normal, and found that he was not quite to the pitch. On an earlier occasion, when that happened, Das (59/111) had adjusted quickly and pushed his pad in defense. This time, he opted for an ungainly, head-in-the-air heave from off to leg, played all round the ball, and found it going through the gate to disturb the stumps (India 97/1 and Ramesh 33 not out off 92 balls).

Ramesh continued in serene fashion. A feature of his knock was that it contained just four boundaries -- this, from a player who in his first few Test innings had shown a marked penchant for looking for the fours and not really bothering about the singles.

The changed mindset has brought with it consistency -- his scores before this innings being 42, 2, 47 and 31. But each time, the left-handed opener had given it away at just the point when, feeling well set, he had sought to make the transition from defence to attack.

This innings was no exception -- having got to 46 off 115 deliveries with just four fours, the opener aimed a drive at a flighted full length delivery from Murali, played it just fractionally away from his body, and found the edge to slip, to reduce India to 115/2.

Ganguly, for his part, got another shocker early on. Against Murali, the Indian captain came four steps down the crease and then, like Das before him, discovered he was not quite to the pitch. So he padded up in defense.

Firstly, when ball impacted on pad, the front foot was a good eight to ten feet away from the stumps. Secondly, the strike was outside the line of off. Third, this is an off spinner, whose natural delivery would turn away from a left-hander. Put those together and it would take a very very brave umpire to have argued that the ball would have straightened onto line of off, and stayed true over a distance of ten feet to hit the stumps.

David Orchard was a very, very brave umpire. And India was reduced to 119/3.

While on this dismissal, anyone reviewing the game will find an indentical incident relating to Das -- almost a mirror image of the Ganguly dismissal, but on that occasion, the umpire had no hesitation in ruling against.

This makes it three dodgy decisions the Indian captain has had on this tour. And that in turn raises a thought -- ever since the Australian tour, it has become fashionable to refer to Ganguly as the bad boy of international cricket, it has become almost mandatory for match referees to scrutinise his actions a lot more closely than they do others.

It makes you wonder -- have umpires across the spectrum decided (as schoolteachers do, when once a student gets a bad name in one class) that Ganguly needs to be disciplined? Or are they merely, for academic reasons and in a spirit of scientific curiosity, testing the limits of his patience?

At that stage, Murali in his post lunch spell had gone 8-3-8-3.

Mohammad Kaif joined Rahul Dravid in a partnership that sought to bat India out of jail. Chaminda Vaas, who in his post-lunch spell compensated for lack of lateral movement off the deck with calculated line and length bowling, continued the good work for Sri Lanka when he angled one on a fullish length across the Indian right hander. Kaif (14) brought his bat down a touch too late, the ball took the back of the bat en route to keeper Kumara Sangakaara, and Vaas claimed his 150th Test victim with India on 146/4, scoring at a rate of around 2.5 at that point.

India went in to tea on 155/4.

Hemang Badani's scores, thus far, have read 6, 5, and 16. Not calculated to inspire confidence, really -- but his captain, vice captain and coach have repeatedly (and in Ganguly's case, publicly) maintained that there is in the southpaw the kind of stuff that the team needs.

Post-tea, Badani finally gave some indication of what his captain and coach had seen in him, when he opened out in a fluent display of strokes, excelling particularly in his driving against the spin of Muralitharan, and his play square on the off against the seamers.

With the left-hander rocketing along to 28 off just 31 deliveries, and with Dravid easily holding his end up, India seemed to be on the road to recovery when Muralitharan -- yet again -- brought Lanka back into the game in the 7th over after tea.

Dravid's (36 off 85 balls) dismissal was as soft as they come -- the Indian vice captain skipped down the track, got to the pitch, and sought to flick the offie away on the on side, but managed only to play it straight into the hands of a leg gully placed precisely to inhibit that shot.

Later in the same over, Sameer Dighe (0 off 2) made the fatal error of padding up without reading the line nor offering a shot -- the ball was bang on a full length, fractionally outside off and turning to zero in on off and middle when Dighe's pads interfered with its progress. And India had, in the space of three deliveries, gone from 191/4, to 192/6.

And Muthiah Muralitharan had completed his 26th five wicket haul in Test cricket -- a figure that has gone under-recognised, and unapplauded.

Murali in fact made this innings a one man show when he won a personal duel against Hemang Badani. The left-hander had twice driven him fluidly through the cover region, covering the turn of the ball away from him. The wily offie then led the southpaw into a trap.

First, he set a field of slip, gully and silly point, leaving the outfield relatively unprotected and inviting the drive. He then went back over the wicket, to angle one across the left-hander on full length, inviting him to drive. Badani (38 off 56) drove. The ball spun away and, along with the slant, ensured that the edge rather than the middle was found, to put the slip fielder in business and reduce India to 207/7.

In the previous game, Harbhajan Singh had taken the game away from Sri Lanka with a buccaneering knock of 44 in the second innings. This time, Chaminda Vaas ensured against an encore when he reverse-swung one at speed and on line of off, straightening it to hit the back pad bang in front of the stumps. 210/8 India.

Sorry for the interruption, Murali could well have said as he watched Vaas take that one. For in the very next over, he was back, tossing one up at Zaheer Khan and turning it dramatically away, the tailender shut his bat face a touch too early, got the ball on the back of the bat and Mahela Jayawardene at slip reacted superbly to hold as it balooned over his head. 213/9.

Sairaj Bahutule -- who ended the domestic season as the leading all rounder at the Ranji level -- then opted for the long handle, playing a fine hook off Vaas when the seamer tried to blast him out. And Venkatesh Prasad held on at the other end.

The final wicket proved fortuitous -- Bahutule aimed a huge drive at Muralitharan and missed. Which was fine, since the ball was turning two feet away from the off stump. Bahutule, however, misjudged where his foot was, Sangakaara spotted the error and whipped the bails off to end the 21 (32 balls) last wicket partnership, and India were bowled out for 234.

Muralitharan ended with 8/87, off 34.1 unchanged overs. And was single-handedly responsible for India losing 10 wickets in a little under two sessions, after a very good morning.

At close, Lanka were 13/0 after having faced six overs. And the most significant of those six was the final one, bowled by Harbhajan Singh, wherein the offie made the ball turn and kick at Marvan Atapattu off a length, forcing the batsman into grim defense.

It's early days yet -- but I'm getting a funny feeling about this. In its desperation to ensure it doesn't lose yet another series after being 1-0 up, Lanka appears to have built excessive turn and bounce into this deck.

Question being, if it turns this much -- with bounce what is more -- on day one, what on earth is it likely to do in the days to come?

It could, of course, settle down -- as pitches sometimes do after a day in the sun -- into docility. But it could, equally, give the spinners reason to lick their lips, and it is Lanka that will be batting last out there. Given that, well...

In passing, the Indian think tank just might want to make a Post It note for itself. To read: Ensure that Harbhajan Singh always bowls from the end David Orchard is umpiring at.

The South African came in with a rep of being an 'out' umpire, as opposed to the more benevolent kind that finds doubts to give the batsman the benefit of. Judging by the speed with which he shoots pad-play down, he is the Wyatt Earp of white coats -- and the Indians need to keep that in mind when it comes to their turn.

Meanwhile, it is mystifying why, on this tour, umpires -- both home and international -- appear to have decided that no balls don't count. Yet again in this instance, the number of occasions on which various bowlers have overstepped without being called is, not to mince words, appalling.

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