Colombo: A cramping Sonal Dinusha’s bloody-mindedness blunted Indian bowlers for the second session in a row as a defiant Sri Lanka went to tea at 383 for eight on the fifth day of the second and final Test here Thursday.
Dinusha (98) and Lahiru Kumara (2) were batting at the break with Sri Lanka swelling their lead to 170 runs in the second innings after being asked to follow-on.
It was an unimaginable situation once the hosts resumed the day from 229 for six, a mere 16 runs ahead.
India were expected to walk through the remaining Lankan batters, but first they hit a roadblock against the Dinusha-Keshara Nuwantha (46, 150b) pair.
The seventh-wicket alliance produced 112 runs but, more importantly, it consumed 174 minutes and 246 balls.
Their effort ensured that Indian bowlers added one more chapter to their aeons-old struggles against late-order batters. The pacers did try some short-ball and leg-side bowling tactics, but they appeared largely flat throughout the session.
Spinners — Manav Suthar, Saransh Jain and Ravindra Jadeja — managed to get some turn and bounce on occasions but the ball eluded the bat to the tourists’ dismay.
In Sri Lanka’s first innings of 290, the last three wickets had batted 45 overs between them while adding 117 runs.
But the numbers only tell half the tale, as Dinusha continued to be a thorn in the flesh, a term used by spin bowling coach Sairaj Bahutule at the end of the fourth day here.
The little left-hander produced his fourth 50-plus score in as many innings in this series as Indians might just seriously consider writing a calypso for him – ‘We couldn’t out Dinusha.’
The 25-year-old reached his fifty in 99 balls with a single off Ravindra Jadeja.
However, Jadeja eventually broke the stand at the beginning of the post-lunch session, inducing an edge from Nuwantha for Jurel at second slip.
But Indians ran into another obdurate Lankan in Lahiru Kumara, who batted out 56 balls for his single-digit innings, which has as much value as Dinusha’s epic.
