Press trust of India
Colombo, August 20: Opener KL Rahul (108, 190, 13×4, 1×6) struck a fluent century as India recovered from early jitters to reach 319 for six in their first innings to leave the second Test against Sri Lanka evenly poised at the P Sara Oval here Thursday.
Opting to bat, the visitors lost opener Murali Vijay (0) and Ajinkya Rahane (4), surprsingly promoted to number three, with only 12 runs on the board before young Rahul and skipper Virat Kohli (78, 107b, 8×4, 1×6) resurrected the innings with an attractive 164 run third wicket partnership.
Rohit Sharma (79, 132b, 5×4, 3×6) also chipped in with a strokeful innings but was dismissed at the fag end of an engrossing opening day’s play.
The Indian captain was unlucky to miss out on his 12th Test hundred after rival skipper Angelo Mathews took a smart diving catch off Rangana Herath’s (2/73) bowling.
Under-fire Rohit Sharma, however, justified the immense faith shown in him by the team management as he somewhat redeemed himself with a stylish knock after his twin failures in the 63-run defeat at Galle.
Indian team management’s decision to try Stuart Binny (10) as an all-rounder did not work in this Test match as the Karnataka player looked totally out of sorts during his 40-ball innings before playing a terrible shot which brought about his downfall.
At stumps, Wriddhiman Saha was unbeaten on 19 as play was called off immediately after Rohit’s dismissal.
Vijay, who missed the last Test due to hamstring injury, had a forgettable comeback as Dhamika Prasad (2/72) trapped him leg-before.
In order to shield Rohit from the new ball, the dependable Rahane was sent at the crucial No. 3 position but Prasad got him with an out-swinger that he tried to drive on the up and was caught in the slips by Dimuth Karunaratne.
It was then that skipper Kohli joined Rahul and the duo started the repair work cautiously but were positive in their strokeplay. Rahul got a reprieve when he was on 11 and made the most of it to score the second Test ton of his career.
Before play began, BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur felicitated Kumar Sangakkara for a glorious international career. The left-hander, who is playing his final Test here, then walked onto the field to a ‘Guard of Honour’ given by Lankan players.
