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One day left, no reason to play

It took, what, 21 minutes to kill this Test match dead.

In that time, 28 deliveries were bowled. Sri Lanka added 6 runs to the overnight total and got its fourth bonus point. India in that time failed to get the one wicket it needed to get that extra bonus point.

And all competitive interest in the game came to an end. Sri Lanka, on 303/4 at the time, were in no position to declare, nor would such a declaration make any cricketing sense. I mean, you don't give the opposition a lead of 200+ with two days in hand, with a bowling lineup the members of which would struggle to get into any decent Ranji Trophy side, do you?

And India weren't too much into getting wickets, preferring to 'slow things down' -- for the lord alone knows what mysterious reason.

So, as mentioned, once the 100 over mark was crossed and there were no bonus points left to be gained, we were left with a situation wherein 175 overs remained in a game neither side was interested in.

At times, for match reports, I get email that goes, you say what someone did wrong, you don't suggest the alternative.

Since the details of play, here on in, are purely of academic interest, let's try a theoretical exercise here. Assume the Indian team is in meeting this morning.

What could the consensus have been, in an ideal scenario? Something like this?

'Okay, guys, it is a stretch to assume that we can keep a side from scoring 6 runs off 28 balls -- so defending that bonus point makes no sense.

'So here is what we will do. We will go in with Prasad at one end and Kumble at the other. Prasad will concentrate on the line of off, looking for movement both ways, off the seam. Kumble will stick to a line of middle and off, bowl slower, let the ball have more air, look for loop and turn.

'The field for Prasad will be three slips, gully, silly point, a short mid off (for the slower ball that could have the batsman foxed on the drive), a short square leg and a short midwicket.

'For Kumble, we will have slip, gully, silly point, short cover, short square leg and leg slip.

'We'll keep the line tight, and look for at least one early wicket.'

What is the worst that can happen with that kind of field? The Lankans will hit fours at will? How many? 28 fours off those 28 balls? Not likely. And even stretching the imagination to the max, what would have happened in that event? Would Lanka have been in a position to force a win? Not likely, since when the match started this morning, the batting side was still 224 runs behind the Indian total. It would have taken a miracle for the batting side to wipe off that deficit, then put enough additional runs on the board to bowl India out a second time and win the match -- so what was to lose?

What are the gains with that gameplan? Simple -- it enhances the chances of getting that one wicket, within the 28 balls that were needed to complete the 100 overs.

That would have given India 6 in the match. Sri Lanka would have got its four, getting the six more runs it needed.

So, at the end of the match, India would have had a total of 11, Lanka would have had 4.

Lanka then has one game to play against Pakistan -- and with this attack, not a hope in hell of winning it. So bonus points would be all that they could hope for. And to draw level with India, they would need to get seven out of 8 -- which means the margin of error is just one.

That is a tougher ask than what Lanka faces now -- where they need to get six bonus points to draw level out of a possible eight. So India increases its chances of shutting Lanka out of the game.

Right?

Right -- but as it turned out, India opted for defense, failed to get the added bonus point, and will now have to hope Lanka turns in a bad performance with bat and ball against Pakistan.

The details of the morning session are easily told. Ranatunga retired hurt at his overnight score of 66. Hashan Tillekeratne came out with Mahela Jayawardene, the former continuing to show signs that his touch with the bat is at its lowest (it took him 24 tortured deliveries to get off the mark).

Jayawardene meanwhile batted like a guy would with one hundred plus under his belt. The Indians did defend tightly, getting to a stage where one run was needed by Lanka in the last of the 100 overs. Kumble, after four tight deliveries, produced a full toss on leg stump and Jayawardene promptly put it away to finish off the game as a contest, taking the score past the 300 mark with one ball of the 100 overs left.

Hashan Tillekeratne lost his wicket thanks to Mongia's presence of mind -- the batsman stretched a long way forward in defence, and was beaten in flight. Mongia gathered, waited that one heartbeat for the batsman's leg, on the stretch, to go past the popping crease, and then took the bails off.

Kaluwitharana with 4, and Jayawardene with 169, saw the side through to lunch. There are five sessions left to play in this game -- but for all practical purposes, both teams might as well call it off and get some rest and recreation.

Post lunch session

No rest for the weary -- or is it the wicked?

31 overs were bowled between lunch and tea. 90 runs were added. The wicket of Romesh Kaluwitharana was lost in the process. And that pretty much sums up two hours worth of 'entertaining cricket' -- the baila bands providing the entertainment aspect at the Sinhalese Cricket Club grounds as Mahela Jayawardene ground remorselessly on, getting to his first double hundred in Tests and, at tea, remaining unbeaten on 213 off 442 deliveries, while Chaminda Vaas kept him company with 22 off 60 deliveries.

In the process, the free-flowing right-hander also surpassed Sanath Jayasuriya's 199, recorded in course of the 1987-'88 series, to notch up the highest score on this ground.

The Indian batting lineup posts some very big names -- but regular as clockwork, it is the opposing batsmen who pile up huge scores, both individual and collective, against the Indian bowling. Surprising? Enigmatic?

Not really -- the reason is simple. Indian batsmen have to work twice as hard -- simply because opposing sides don't give a batsman too many lives. Whereas the opposition finds it considerably easier, thanks to the munificience of the Indian fielders.

Consider the two recent big knocks against India. Saeed Anwar, dropped at two, goes on to pile up 188. Jayawardene, dropped three times before completing his first century (and that is not to mention the umpiring goof up) goes on to get a double.

And how does he reach the landmark? Predictably, off another chance -- Harbhajan Singh, who got on a track that helped him spin the ball sharply got three wickets against his name in this innings, pitched one on leg and made it jump and turn, Jayawardene attempted to pull him around, miscued it completely, Prasad at deep backward square ran around, got both hands to it and grassed the chance, letting the batsman get the three runs he needed to reach his double century.

Makes you wonder if, perhaps, it wasn't time to include a new column in the scorebook: thus, in addition to the usual 'batsman-runs-balls faced-fours-sixes', you could add 'lives'. Seems pertinent, especially when India is one of the parties to the contest, these days.

The only joy for the Indians came when Romesh Kaluwitharana, who appeared to have come to the crease with the sole intention of pulling at every single ball bowled to him, played the shot once too often. Harbhajan pitched outside off, turned it in sharply to slide under the flailing bat and peg back the leg stump.

Chaminda Vaas, the new man in, batted with sound sense, Jayawardene for his part decided that he wouldn't find this good an opportunity to beef up his career average and ground on and on, and the Indians -- led during this session by Anil Kumble, with skipper Mohammad Azharuddin electing not to take the field -- went through the fetch-and-carry motions in characteristically lacklustre fashion.

At tea, Lanka had made 448/6 off 150 overs.

Post tea session

The session saw an unexpectedly quick end to the Lankan innings.

Acting skipper Anil Kumble, was wicketless till that point, tossed one up going round the wicket, outside the left-handed Chaminda Vaas's off stump, the batsman heaved at it and off the outer edge, gave Laxman at slip the chance to finally hold one.

Arjuna Ranatunga, with Russel Arnold in tow as runner, walked back out to resume his interrupted innings -- and walked back after flicking the first ball he received, around off from Kumble, to Kanitkar who held a sharp chance at short square leg.

Eric Upashanta saved the hat-trick, so Kumble's mom has to wait a bit longer to see her son fulfil her wish. But shortly after, the leggie beat the tail-ender for pace (strange thing to say when an leg spinner is bowling, I know, but that extra pace on the flipper is one of Kumble's most potent weapons) with a flipper on line of off and middle, and took Upashanta out LBW.

Mahela Jayawardene had batted for all but 25 minutes of the Lankan innings, and scored 242 (almost exactly half the runs scored by the side). Let offs or no, it was an innings of grit and character, studded with some elegant strokeplay on all sides of the wicket. The end however was tame, as Kumble again produced a googly, the turn in to the batsman foiling Jayawardene's intention to drive through the on side, forcing the batsman to hit it back to the bowler to end the marathon innings.

The Lankan innings ended with the batting side 33 runs under the Indian total. A description of how the Indian bowlers bowled, however, would be rather futile, given the prodigality in the field. Yet, Prasad, Kumble and Harbhajan did enough with the ball to indicate that with a more aggressive field setting and better catching, this game would have taken a different trend. And Nehra for his part indicated that the selectors, in plucking him out of nowhere and pitchforking him into the big time, were a touch off base.

Aravinda D'Silva apparently had some plan of getting Ramesh out playing across the line to the seamers. To implement this, he kept a packed offside field and left the leg side untenanted, to encourage the left-hander. Who, in any case, doesn't seem to need any encouragement when it comes to playing shots -- four elegant flicks off his pads, spanning the arc from mid on to backward square, put an end to that particular tactic.

India raced to 50 off 57 deliveries, thanks largely to Ramesh's quickfire 30 off 38 deliveries. But with a drizzle coming down (an earlier one had taken the Indian openers off the field for about ten minutes), Ramesh's Achilles heel showed, as he played a casual, almost-asleep drive at one outside off for Ruwan Kalpage, substituting for Arjuna Ranatunga, to hold superbly at short cover. Lazy elegance is one thing, but the lad needs to make an effort and stay awake at the crease a while longer -- he has incredible potential, makes runs quick and makes them wholesale, if he tightens up his concentration just that touch, he is going to be next to unstoppable.

That brought in Saurav Ganguly to the crease. His presence being explained by one of those periodic fuses that the team think-tank blows. Dravid, injured in the fifth over of the day, was off the field from that point, and therefore couldn't bat (for the curious, Dravid at short square stopped a Jayawardene flick with his face, the ball going through the visor to cut him under his left eye).

Azharuddin, meanwhile, wasn't on the field, for less obvious reasons, since lunch. And this meant that he, too, couldn't bat in his usual slot. So Ganguly got promoted to Dravid's vacancy. And couldn't help but wonder what the gameplan was, in the event India lost two more quick wickets -- Sachin comes in at the fall of the second, but after that, who did the Indians have in mind, Mongia?

In the event, the Indians progressed to 59/1 off 13.3 overs before the umpires offered the light to the batsmen, who gladly accepted. And that brought an end to the day's proceedings.

There is a day's play left in the game -- but it would need Dr Pangloss at his most optimistic to see any possibility of a result here.

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