IND vs SL: 2nd Test – 16 wickets fall as India take honours
Shreyas Iyer’s 98-ball 92 headlined the first day of the Bengaluru Test that propelled India to 252 as the hosts found themselves in a commanding position at stumps on with a first-innings lead of 165 runs. India, who won the toss and elected to bat, saw their top-order being dismissed after getting good starts with only Shreyas Iyer playing a match-defining knock. The bowlers then worked in tandem to remove six Sri Lankan wickets with a well-set Angelo Mathews falling at the stroke of stumps, at which the visitors’ scorecard read 86/6.
- Shreyas Iyer’s counterattacking knock
After the fall of Virat Kohli’s wicket, Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant added 40 runs for the fifth-wicket stand before the latter was bowled by Lasith Embuldeniya for 39. India lost Ravindra Jadeja soon thereafter. While the wickets began to tumble from one hand, Iyer stood like a wall from the other and took the attack to the Sri Lankan bowlers. His knock included 10 boundaries and six maximums before he became the last Indian wicket to fall, being stumped by Niroshan Dickwella off left-arm spinner Praveen Jayawickrama.
- India’s quickfire scoring
Even though quick wickets at regular intervals hampered India’s momentum, things got back to normal to a certain extent with Shreyas Iyer’s match-defining knock in the middle-order. More importantly, it was Rishabh Pant’s quickfire knock that made some difference. The wicketkeeper-batter scored 39 runs off only 26 deliveries including seven boundaries at an impressive strike rate of 150 as India scored 252 runs in their first innings at rate of 4.25.
- Pitch behaviour
The nature of the Bengaluru wicket on Day 1 of the series decider was awkward. Plenty of uneven bounce and turn from the very first session meant 16 wickets fell on the first day’s play.
There were a couple of instances on Day 1. The first one was that of Virat Kohli being deceived by an unplayable delivery by off-spinner Dhananjaya de Silva which caught him plumb in front of the wickets. The other was Mohammed Shami’s length delivery that was bowled outside off stump, angling inside sharply to disturb Sri Lankan skipper Dimuth Karunaratne’s furniture. The ball went through the left-handed batter’s bat and pads to clean him up.
