There’s fabulous Test match taking place in the Indian capital of Delhi between the world’s top two ranked teams – India and Australia at the moment.
Delhi is a fortress of Indian cricket where their spinners dominate and make a mockery of the opposition batsman.
To put up with the rank turners and efficient spinners is one thing but countering the Delhi smog and pollution is quite another. These are conditions that you are never used to and unless players take necessary precautions, they are in for a hard time.
Given how strangely Indian cricket politics work, Delhi is no more a strong power base of Indian cricket. Ahmedabad has become quite influential and Delhi in fact is hosting a Test match after six year. Sri Lanka were the last team to play here in 2017.
Skippered by Dinesh Chandimal, Sri Lanka arrived in the capital city after an embarrassing innings and 239 run defeat in the second Test in Nagpur. Nobody gave them a chance to survive in a rank turner. But cricket is a funny game and sometimes out of the blues you find players coming up with stunning match winning or match saving efforts. That was exactly what Delhi witnessed in that game.
The odds were heavily against the tourists. Since 1987, there had been 11 Tests in Delhi and only one had been drawn with India winning the other ten.
Sri Lanka literally played out of their skins after the Nagpur debacle.
With opener Sadeera Samarawickrama unable to bat having copped a nasty one from Virat Kohli while fielding at short leg, off-spinner Dilruwan Perera, an accomplished bat opened batting but Sri Lanka were onto a horrendous start losing Dimuth Karunaratne for a first ball duck. Dilruwan did a decent job making 41. It was the experienced duo of Dinesh Chandimal (164) and Angelo Mathews (111) who ensured that Sri Lanka came up with a decent first innings total, something essential in India when when you have to bat last.
A bit more application could have helped Sri Lanka for a better show but they collapsed from 317 for four to 343 for nine as India’s spinner ran through the lower middle order. Roshen Silva and Niroshan Dickwella were both dismissed for ducks by Ravi Ashwin. Sri Lanka eventually posted 373 thanks to the last wicket partnership of 30 runs between Chandimal and Lakshan Sandakan, who faced 20 balls for no score.
Sri Lanka were set an improbable target of 410 runs but the more realistic target for them was to surviving the final hour on the penultimate day and three sessions on day five. When Sri Lanka finished day four on 31 for three there was not much hope as India were looking to wrap things up on day five. But Dhananjaya de Silva put out a statement in his new role of number three having
replaced Lahiru Thirimanne as he posted a fine hundred. But to bat three sessions on the final day and saving a Test match can not be done by one man.
It looked all over for Sri Lanka when they slumped to 147 for five with two sessions to go in the game. Five wickets in two sessions in helpful conditions wasn’t too challenging a task to the accomplished Indian attack.
But little did the Indian spinners know that in Roshen Silva they encountered a seasoned veteran who had built up a reputation for him in domestic cricket as a prolific run scorer. Often when you go to India you keep hearing that you need to be proactive against the spinners and need to keep the scoreboard ticking. But this was proper Test match cricket where Roshen trusted his defence and came up with a solid effort.
Sunil Gavaskar is often quick to praise Sri Lankans in his commentary and he had lots of good things to say about Roshen’s temperament.
Not only did Roshen play soundly he had got Niroshan Dickwella to follow suit as well as the pair added an unbroken 94 run stand for the sixth wicket. Getting Dickwella to concentrate for long hours without any drama isn’t the most easiest thing to do. But Roshen managed that.
Not that Dickwella didn’t try his antics. First he told Roshen that Sri Lanka had already lost the series and it didn’t matter if they lose 1-0 or 2-0 and try and chase down the 110 run target in the last 15 overs. An argument that Roshen didn’t buy into. Then Dickwella tempted Roshen to complete his hundred as it was a rare achievement on debut. But Roshen was old enough to know that cricket is a funny game and was happy to be left stranded on 74 not out. It was one hell of a fight back from a very fine player.
