Lankans dominate first session
After dominating the first-session of Day-one, Sri Lanka made sure the morning of the second day also belonged to them. India lost their remaining four wickets, adding a mere 41 runs to their overnight total of 385. While chasing India’s first innings score of 426, the Lankan openers went into the lunch break with 37 on the board.
 India lost their remaining four wickets, adding a mere 41 runs to their overnight total of 385. © AFP |
The second day crowd at Motera must have been disappointed to see Dravid walking back to the pavilion without adding anything to his overnight score of 177. Welegedara was once again the man for Sri Lanka, as he moved the ball with telling effect and started off with a maiden over to Dravid. He made the batsman come forward and drive the ball.
In his next over, after bowling three more dot balls, he got his man. He brought one back in, which took the inside edge of Dravid’s bat and went on to dislodge the stumps.
Harbhajan was his usual entertaining self, as he amused all with his innovative cricket shots. Not surprisingly, he got out trying to reverse-sweep Muralitharan after failing to manage one in the earlier delivery.
After the Zaheer-Bhajji 25-run partnership was ended by Herath, Muralitharan cleaned up the remaining tail by getting rid of Mishra and Ishant- who was stumped by Prasanna Jayawardene.
As the Sri Lankan openers, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Tharanga Paranavitana began their journey of overhauling the Indian first innings total of 426, they were up against a fiery Zaheer Khan, who is making a comeback after an injury lay-off. Zaheer peppered Dilshan with a few short deliveries in the opening over. He bowled beautifully though he was unlucky not to get an edge despite beating both the openers on several occasions.
Harbhajan was brought into the attack as early as in the seventh over and the Lankan openers immediately showed an aggressive intent, going after him. Both of them scored runs at a brisk pace, taking the advantage of the good batting strip.
