While captain Kohli continued his record-breaking spree, lankans kicked up controversy by stopping play twice citing air pollution
It was turning out to be just the kind of day in a Test match between India and Sri lanka that fans have become used to. Virat Kohli smashing the Sri lankan bowlers effortlessly all over the ground en route to his double hundred, Rohit Sharma showing his hitting prowess with the visitors looking down and out and India inexorably heading towards another massive score to all but extinguish Sri lanka's chances of leveling the series.
But then something, hitherto unseen, took place at the Ferozeshah Kotla on Sunday. Many fielders of the Sri lankan team came out to field with face masks on, clearly suggesting that they were unhappy with the air quality. But things came to a head when both their frontline seam bowlers, Suranga lakmal and lahiru Gamage walked off the field complaining of breathing problems due to air pollution and the play had to be suspended twice causing bemusement among the India team and its staff.
This drama seemed to affect the Indian batsman as Ravichandran Ashwin was dismissed on the first ball after the first break in the game. Virat Kohli, who by that time had gone past his double hundred and seemed to be in the mood to go further, also got dismissed at his personal best score of 243.
India's head coach Ravi Shastri was involved in an animated conversation with the umpires and the team generally seemed unhappy with the complaints from the visitors. Eventually, Virat Kohli decided to end the matter by declaring India's innings at the score of 536/7. Afterwards, the play continued as normal with neither the Sri lankan batsmen nor the Indian bowlers making any complaints about the air pollution.
The day started with the Indian captain looking to complete his sixth double-century, the most scored by a player as a captain.
At the other end, Rohit Sharma had his own agenda of booking his spot in the team for the South Africa tour with this possibly being the last innings for India before the away series. Both seemed to be in no trouble as they continued to flay the Sri lankan attack which looked as listless as before.
Rohit got to his fifty before under-edging a delivery from lakshan Sandakan to be dismissed for 65.
Kohli, on the other hand, equalled Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag's record of most double hundreds by an Indian batsman when he reached his sixth. He was probably looking to go even further and get a triple-century but played back to a flipper from Sandakan to be dismissed for 243.
When Sri lanka came out to bat ,they got the worst possible start with Dimuth Karunaratne being dismissed on the very first ball of the innings as he edged Mohhamad Shami's delivery to wicket-keeper Wriddhiman Saha.
Things got even worse with Dhananjaya de Silva dismissed for a solitary run by Ishant Sharma as the visitors were tottering at 14/2.
With opener Sadeera Samarawickrama out with an injury sustained on first day of the match, off-spinner Dilruwan Perera opened the innings and with Angelo Matthews steadied the ship.
Sri lankan coach Nic Pothas revealed that Perera volunteered to open and praised him for this.
“Dilruwan has always contributed with the bat. In his younger years, he opened the batting and today when we had to deal with the situation of our opener not being available, he put his hand up to do the job. That's his character.”
But both Dilruwan and Matthews also benefitted from the generosity of India slip fielders as the duo got one repreive each in the form of dropped catches.
However, the batsmen got their eye in and started to look more comfortable and boundaries started to come more easily after the 10th over. Ishant, who was bowling back of a length and getting some seam movement was struck for three fours in an over when pitched the ball up.
The partnership progressed at a steady rate as the two put together a stand of 61.
Ravindra Jadeja was brought into the attack quite early and, as is his usual wont, started bowling a tight line and length to block the runs from one end. Dilruwan tried to break the shackles when he stepped out to Jadeja and hit him over his head for a boundary but the Saurashtra tweaker remained calm and kept his consistency.
In fact, Perera was keen to use his feet against Jadeja and was twice hit on the pad in the process with the Indians going up in appeal but he survived. When this happened for the third time though, Kohli went for a review and the hawk-eye showed that the ball would have crashed into the stumps thereby ending Perera's spirited knock. He was out for 42 off just 54 balls.
Skipper Chandimal joined his predecessor Matthews and two continued the good work while getting the occasional boundary whenever the seamers overpitched.
Ashwin was held back by Kohli but finally came into the attack in the 28th over and was welcomed wholeheartedly by Matthews who came down the wicket to loft his second and third deliveries for six. Ashwin looked ruffled and kept changing between over-the-wicket and round-the-wicket. He did manage to get some rhythm later on but was still flipping between the two lines of attack.
Matthews had reached his fifty with the second six against Ashwin and Chandimal too moved steadily forward as the partnership reached the fifty mark. The two experienced batsmen got their team through to stumps without further hiccups as the Sri lankans ended the day on 131/3.
The only disappointment for India on Day 2 was the lack of success for Ashwin but India’s bowling coach Bharath Arun defended his performance. “Ashwin is probably one of the most successful Indian spinners. He is quite intelligent too. This is a wicket which is right now more in favour of the batsmen. So, he needs to find out by bowling over and round the wicket, which is the line and length to bowl and once he gets that going, he should be a lot better than what he was like today.”
With three days remaining in the Test, Sri lanka’s chances of surviving look as bleak as the Delhi skyline.