Galle (Sri Lanka): As the beleaguered Indian cricket team start picking up pieces after a ‘Shocking Saturday’, the spotlight is firmly fixed on team’s senior-most pro Harbhajan Singh whose unimpressive show in the 63-run defeat has raised question marks about his future.
In a match, where all 40 wickets fell, five specialist spinners from either side accounted for 31 of them. But the piece of statistic that would certainly disturb Harbhajan is the fact that his share his 1 out of 31 giving away 90 runs in 25 overs.
While India’s strike bowler Ravi Ashwin had a 10-for, Amit Mishra also did his case no harm by picking up five wickets in two innings.
For Sri Lanka, Tharindu Kaushal got eight scalps while 37-year-old Rangana Herath — the oldest among 22 players made amends for a disappointing first innings with a match-winning seven-wicket haul.
Just when one finds how Herath turned the clock back and defied all odds to win a Test match for his side, Harbhajan’s time on the field seemed like a struggle as he went through the motions with Dinesh Chandimal knocking the stuffing out of the Indian attack.
Skipper Virat Kohli however admitted that the ‘Turbanator’ bowled only one good spell but then in his defence said that all bowlers during that phase were punished by Chandimal.
“I think in the second innings, a spell he bowled was nice one. He was getting good rhythm but after that Chandimal started attacking every bowler. I think that threw him off, along with others, in that particular session,” Kohli defended the 35-year-old senior off-spinner.
PTI