Close - Sri Lanka 264 for 3 (K Sangakkara 54*, R Arnold 19*)
A superb century from Sanath Jayasuriya, which followed a magnificent spell of fast bowling from Dilhara Fernando, provided the impetus as Sri Lanka had India chasing shadows on the second day of the first Test at Galle. After slicing through India's apology of a tail, the hosts had built up a handy lead of 77 runs by the close, and still had seven wickets standing. It was a day to forget for Sourav Ganguly and his men, who came out decidedly second-best in all departments of the game.

Jayasuriya's innings was straight from the vintage that he seems to save up for the Indians. Like the Mike Tyson of old, he came out swinging - and the heavyweight punches had the Indians on their knees well before teatime. There were some glorious strokes - the trademark slashes over point, the weighty drives through the covers and some superbly timed flicks off the pads. With Marvan Atapattu, he brought up the hundred at slightly less than four an over. Atapattu, far more circumspect and traditional in his approach, made a cultured 33 before falling, via bat and pad, to Harbhajan Singh. Hemang Badani took the catch at silly point to make it 101 for 1.

Jayasuriya continued to inflict punishment as the bowling deteriorated from bad to woeful. Apart from the odd spell, the Indian quicks put on a display today that could best be described - in fruity Australian terms - as a load of old cobblers. Srinath and Prasad were the worst culprits, and Zaheer Khan's performance was little better. Harbhajan Singh toiled away, but with such atrocious back-up, the Sri Lankans were never tested.

After scorching the pitch and the opposition on his way to 111, Jayasuriya fell in timid fashion, when a rising Zaheer Khan delivery deflected off the face of his bat to Dravid at second slip (171 for 2).

There was a 30-minute rain delay after tea, but Mahela Jayawardene was nonetheless in tremendous nick, striking four glorious boundaries on his way to a quickfire 28. Finally, Srinath succeeded in pitching one on the spot and Jayawardene, Sri Lanka's vice-captain, got the thinnest of edges through to Dighe (211 for 3). Kumar Sangakkara and Russel Arnold then batted through to stumps without encountering much trouble. Both were severe on anything loose. The bad light that stopped play 16.4 overs early would have come as blessed relief to the Indian bowlers, who were on a hiding to nothing.

India's innings, which had resumed at 163 for 5 in the morning, was a case of Jack falling down and everyone else tumbling after. Sourav Ganguly gloved an exceptionally quick Fernando delivery through to Sangakkara to continue his dismal run with the bat (176 for 6). He was quickly followed back to the pavilion by Harbhajan, comprehensively bowled by Fernando (181 for 7) and Dighe (185 for 8), superbly caught by Sangakkara off the same bowler, after leaving his bat up like a periscope while he ducked. That gave young Fernando five wickets in the innings for the second time in Tests, and he also took care of Srinath by rapping him on the hand and sending him wincing to the physio. When Muralitharan bowled Prasad with one that spun the other way, the scoreboard ground to a halt, with just 187 runs to show for almost 100 overs of batting.

Dileep Premachandran is assistant editor of Wisden Online India

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