Sri Lanka grabbed three big wickets in the closing session to throw the second Test against India wide open on the third day yesterday.
India were strongly placed at 144-1 before slipping to 200-4 in their second innings at stumps, with Muttiah Muralitharan, Ajantha Mendis and Chaminda Vaas sharing the wickets. The tourists are now only 237 ahead with six wickets in hand.
Sourav Ganguly and Venkatsai Laxman had yet to open their accounts when bad light stopped play.
PHOTO: AP
India appeared to have seized the initiative after attacking knocks from Gautam Gambhir (74), Virender Sehwag (50), Rahul Dravid (44) and Sachin Tendulkar (31) before losing their way.
Sri Lanka were bowled out for 292 in their first innings on the stroke of lunch in reply to India’s 329, with skipper Mahela Jayawardene top-scoring with a stylish 86.
Off-spinner Harbhajan Singh played a big role in India gaining the lead as he grabbed 6-102 for his 22nd haul of five or more wickets in a Test innings. He was brilliantly supported by leg-spinner Anil Kumble (3-81).
Gambhir and Sehwag then gave India a flying start for a second successive time in the match, adding 90 for the opening wicket. They had put on 167 in the first innings.
Sehwag again showed the way as he followed his first-innings 201 not out with a blazing fifty, blunting the Sri Lankan spin attack with his aggressive approach.
He reached his fifty off 49 balls before he fell playing an uppish drive off pace man Vaas, with Tillakaratne Dilshan timing his jump to perfection to take a superb catch in the covers.
Gambhir, who made 56 in the first innings, also used his feet remarkably well against spinners Mendis and Muralitharan to complete a second successive half-century.
He had been batting fluently before being bowled by Mendis, attempting to pad away a delivery that turned in sharply to hit the off-stump.
Sri Lanka bounced back into the match when they dismissed Tendulkar and Dravid in the space of eight deliveries.
Tendulkar was caught in the slips driving a delivery from Vaas, while Dravid was adjudged leg before wicket off Muralitharan.
Dravid was initially given not out by umpire Billy Doctrove, but the Sri Lanka captain requested the official to review the decision under a new experimental rule which is on trial in the series.
Doctrove changed his decision after consulting TV umpire Gamini Silva of Sri Lanka.
The Indian spinners earlier shattered Sri Lanka’s hopes of gaining the lead by sharing five wickets, with Kumble taking three and Harbhajan two. The hosts could add only 77 to their overnight total of 215-5.
Jayawardene, averaging 99.21 before this match at the Galle International Stadium, was the lone batsman to thwart the Indian spinners. He looked set to complete his 24th Test hundred before being caught behind off Kumble.
The teams observed a two-minute silence before the match in memory of former India batsman Ashok Mankad.
Sri Lanka lead 1-0 in the three-match series following their win by an innings and 239 runs in the opening Test in Colombo.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier