India are firm favourites to win the second Test match against Sri Lanka after they piled on a massive 447 run target on Sri Lanka on Sunday, 13 March. While pink ball Test matches do not usually see big totals, India scored 303 runs for the loss of nine wickets on a difficult track to take the game completely out of Sri Lanka’s reach on Day 2 in Bangalore.
India had three things working in their favour. The first two of those being Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant, two men who were class apart in the first innings of the game, and then returned in the second innings to put on incredibly dominating performances.
Pant broke Kapil Dev’s 40-year-old record of the fastest Test fifty scored by an Indian and pulled India away on what could have been a competitive day, if Sri Lanka played their cards right. The young left hander showed mastery over his foot movement and negotiated whatever was dealt to him, hitting 7 fours and 2 sixes and reaching his 50 in just 28 balls.
The second factor was Shreyas Iyer, India’s best batter on this pitch. He scored an excellent knock of 92 off 98 balls in the first innings to rescue India from a difficult spot and today, added another crucial 67 off 87 balls alongside Pant to give India celar lead in the Test match.
Iyer’s ability to attack spin in any shape or form makes him one of the most sought after commodities in Indian cricket, and these innings will go on to make his case much stronger in the coming times.
The third factor, and this is where Sri Lanka were thrown out of the game, was of their own making. Sri Lanka had a horrid outing vis a vis the DRS situation today. They misused their reviews, some of which was clear as day, and they did not choose to review on three occasions that could have gotten them the wicket.
This mixed with flowing batting of the two youngsters, and their horrible catching made life hell for the Lankan players in Bangalore and took the game away from them inside two sessions.
To be fair to India, it was not like they would have crumpled if those reviews would have been taken. Most of the batsmen out there looked fairly decent. One might go as far to say that Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant made the pitch look like it did not have any demons for a certain amount of time.
Virat Kohli was probably the only underwhelming performance today, getting out on 13 off 16 balls, despite looking good. This marked the first time that Kohli’s average had come below 50 in a long long while in Test cricket, something that will probably start bothering the fans and experts of the game.
India batted till their 9 wicket, and gave Sri Lanka the last half an hour play under the lights, where the visiting team did fairly well to score 28/1 in seven overs. At the end of the day, Sri Lanka had captain Dimuth Karunaratne and Kusal Mendis in the crease having lost Lahiru Thirimanne in the very first over against Jasprit Bumrah.
The Islanders have 419 runs more to score in three days time but it is highly unlikely that they will manage to chase it down against the Indian bowling line-up.