By BD Naraayannkar Bengaluru, Mar 12 : Shreyas Iyer’s 92 helped India post 252 all out in their first innings at dinner on Day 1 of the pink-ball Test against Sri Lanka at Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Saturday. Riding high on his form, Shreyas missed out on his second Test hundred. He cracked 92 runs off 98 balls, studded with 10 boundaries and 4 sixes. After the pink ball turned soft, the batting looked easy compared to the first session where the hard ball was difficult to negotiate. Some odd balls were scooting low and few others were turning. Batsmen could not execute their shots with great degree of confidence, but India would rue some of their dismissals that were pretty innocuous including Shreyas’ who needlessly jumped out of the crease to play a big shot when he was 8 runs short of another century. On the other hand, Sri Lanka would be disappointed at the bowling as they gave away easy runs by offering them a flurry of loose deliveries. Their fielding also was dismal as they dropped a few chances. Lasith Embuldeniya, Praveen Jayawickrama bagged three wickets each for visitors. Dhananjaya de Silva and Suranga Lakmal bagged a wicket each. Resuming at 93 for 4 at tea, Sri Lanka struck two quick wickets removing first Test hero Ravindra Jadeja (4) and Pant (39). Jadeja departed trying to cut one from Embuldeniya, who claimed his second wicket. Pant accelerated, but Sri Lanka struck back with his wicket after they bogged him down with some dots. Ravichandran Ashwin was adjudged leg-before after missing a sweep off Embuldeniya, but managed to reverse the decision after opting for a review. The replay showed that the ball was bouncing a bit too much. Ashwin lost his wicket as he tried to make room for the cut and got a big deflection into Niroshan Dickwella’s gloves. Earlier, India got off to a poor start as they were reduced to 93 for 4 at tea after they lost top order batsmen, including Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Rohit might not be too unhappy to have lost four wickets in the first session as there is plenty on offer for bowlers, especially the spinners. The pitch is having inconsistent bounce. Mayank Agarwal was run out for 4 and Rohit (15) nicked one off Lasith Embuldeniya to gully where Dhananjaya de Silva held on to it. Hanuma Vihari (31) was undone by turn and bounce, while Kohli got out to a horrifying grubber. In between, there were some glorious shots on both sides of the square, some stout defending and some audacious blows, especially from Rishabh Pant (16 not out), who was let-off early by Suranga Lakmal of Praveen Jayawickrama. The Lankan spinners were decent, but they would be a bit disappointed at not having made the most of the help they have had from the track. With inconsistent bounce, anything around 250 could be a good first-innings total. Opting to bat, India started their innings in jittery fashion as Mayank tried to steal a single on an appeal for a leg-before that was turned down. He thought of sneaking in a run and ran down the pitch to some confusion from Rohit at the other end. The Sri Lankans took advantage and ran him out. Lanka got the big wicket of Rohit after Embuldeniya got the India captain’s outside edge as he feel for 15. He lunged into the forward defence to get an outside edge. De Silva stayed low at gully to take a good catch. Vihari survived a leg-before appeal as he opted for a review after Kohli urged him to review and the ball was found to be missing. Sri Lanka ultimately made the breakthrough as Jayawickrama landed one on a length that took Vihari’s edge for a catch to Niroshan Dickwella. Offspinner De Silva then was brought in to bowl at the left-handed Pant, but instead had one turn which kept low to trap Kohli leg-before. BDN SHK1932
