Tea: India 600 and 56 for 2 (Abhinav 27*) lead Sri Lanka 291 (Perera 92*, Mathews 83, Jadeja 3-67, Shami 2-45) by 365 runs
India declined to enforce the follow-on after wrapping up a 309-run first-innings lead, and extended it by a further 56 runs before rain forced the players off the field. They lost two wickets while doing so, Shikhar Dhawan failing to keep a cut down off Dilruwan Perera and Cheteshwar Pujara clipping Lahiru Kumara straight to a strategically positioned leg gully. Rain arrived immediately after Pujara’s dismissal, 30 minutes before the scheduled tea break on day three.
Ravindra Jadeja ended Sri Lanka’s innings nine balls after lunch, beating Lahiru Kumara’s defensive bat with one that turned just enough to miss the outside edge and hit off stump. At the non-striker’s end was Dilruwan Perera, stranded eight short of a maiden Test hundred. His proactive approach had led Sri Lanka’s fight in the morning session, in which Sri Lanka scored 135 runs at just over four an over, while losing three wickets.
Perera, batting above No. 8 for only the sixth time in 31 Test innings, did his best to make up for the absence of the injured Asela Gunaratne from Sri Lanka’s line-up, showing not just the skills to survive but also an ability to take calculated risks and keep the scoreboard moving. He showed early intent against the spinners, stepping out to Jadeja in the second over of the day and hitting him flat, over the non-striker’s head. Not long after, he went down on one knee and slog-swept the left-arm spinner over midwicket. That was to be the first of four sixes from Perera, two each off Jadeja and R Ashwin.
He took on the quicks too, most notably when he made room against Umesh Yadav to slap and ramp him for two fours, either side of third man, shortly after he had brought up his fifth Test fifty. Umesh kept bowling short – intentionally, with two fielders back on the hook – but did not trouble Perera unduly. In his next over, he flat-batted a pull from outside off to the wide long-on boundary.
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By that time, Sri Lanka had lost Angelo Mathews, who moved from 54 to 83 before driving too early at a flighted ball from Jadeja and picking out short cover. Jadeja then went on to remove Rangana Herath, who gloved a reverse-sweep to slip. Hardik Pandya took the only other wicket of the session, his first in Test cricket, Nuwan Pradeep bowled playing down the wrong line.
Herath and Pradeep only made 9 and 10, but with Perera scoring quickly at the other end, the seventh- and eight-wicket partnerships added 36 and 39.
Karthik Krishnaswamy is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo