Mumbai, December 04: Having been on the receiving end of Virender Sehwag’s fury for almost whole of yesterday, Sri Lanka enjoyed their most productive session of the match as they pegged India back with some quick wickets post-lunch.
India lost the wicket of VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh in pursuit of quick runs, crawling to 629/7 at tea, with an overall lead of 235 runs.
Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, on 21 runs, and Zaheer Khan, on 3 runs, were holding forte for India.
With Yuvraj scratchy at his end, the onus was on Laxman to step up India’s scoring rate.
Post Tendulkar’s wicket, Laxman seemed to have found his timing as well, hitting some wonderful fours to complete a fine half-century. His efforts were however cut-short when he failed to connect to a flighted delivery of Muttiah Muralidaran and scooped a simple catch at mid-on to Nuwan Kulasekara.
Laxman scored 62 runs from 91 balls, with 9 sublime hits to the fence.
Yuvraj, who looked uncomfortable throughout his innings, fell as he attempted to clear the mid-off, but failed to get his timing right. He made 23 runs and was Rangana Herath’s first victim.Harbhajan Singh scored just 1 run before Muttiah Muralidaran made him his third victim.
Battered Sri Lankan bowlers’ toil seemed to be reaping rewards as they succeeded not only in curbing India’s scoring rate, but also managed to pick the prized wicket of Sachin Tendulkar early in the second session.
Kulasekara had cleaned up Tendulkar’s stumps with a classic off-cutter to leave India at 558/4.
Having started off brightly, Tendulkar seemed to have slowed down mid-way, falling soon after completing his half-century. He made 53 runs from 103 balls, hitting 6 fours.
Tendulkar also shared a sedate 71 run-partnership with VVS Laxman for the fourth wicket.
Post Tendulkar’s wicket, Laxman seemed to have found his timing, hitting some wonderful fours to close in on his half-century as well.
At lunch break, India were 536/3, with an overall lead of 143 runs and in a position of strength.
The hosts were looking to bat Sri Lanka out of reckoning in the third and final Test match of the series at the Brabourne Stadium.
In the morning, Virender Sehwag fell agonizingly short of a slew of world records when he scooped a simple return catch to Muttiah Muralidaran off his own bowling.
Sehwag, who went into the day, needing just 16 more to become first ever cricketer in Test cricket’s more than a century old history to score three triple hundreds, fell for 293 runs in just the day’s 4th over, much to the disappointment of not only the packed Brabourne Stadium audience, but also million of Indian cricket fans around the world.
Sehwag had recorded the second fastest double hundred and the fastest 250 during his 239 ball, unbeaten 284 runs yesterday, lasted 254 balls for his masterpiece that was laced with 40 boisterous boundaries and 7 sixes.
Sehwag’s dismissal also brought curtains to the Rahul Dravid-Sehwag association that yielded 237 runs for the second wicket in just 43.1 overs.
India was 458/2 at the time of Sehwag’s dismissal, which became 487/3 when Dravid was caught behind by Prasanna Jayawardene off Welegedara for a well compiled 74.
Dravid, who had endured a purple patch in this series with scores of 177, 38 and 144 runs before this innings, played a perfect foil to Sehwag during latter’s exploits yesterday. He himself hit 5 fours and a six during his 147 ball knock.
—Agencies