SL v IND, 1st Test, Day 1 Review: Centuries from Dhawan, Pujara help India dominate proceedings

India amassed 399 for 3 on the opening day of the Galle Test match. No team has ever scored that many runs on the opening day of a Test match in Sri Lanka. Shikhar Dhawan’s sublime hundred on Test come back was the main contributor to India’s swift run rate throughout the day.

Losing Mukund early had no impact on Dhawan

Dhawan smote the Sri Lankans all around the park in a spry innings. He lost his opening partner Mukund very early in the innings when the Tamil Nadu batsman played at one he should have left alone. This was Mukund’s second Test in six years and yet again he failed to leave an impression getting out for 12. The left-hander has 28 runs in three innings and will struggle to hold on to his place when Rahul returns for the second Test. Dhawan remained unperturbed by the early fall of Mukund and reached his half-century off 62 balls.

Dhawan had a reprieve when he was on 31. He was suckered at driving at a wide one off Kumara but Gunaratne floundered a pretty straight forward chance at second slip, fracturing his thumb in the process. The all-rounder is now ruled out of the series and the hosts are left with 10 men for the rest of this game. Dhawan was given solid company by the incumbent No. 3 of India: Chestashwar Pujara. When Dhawan hurled an attack on the Sri Lanka spinners, Pujara calmly got into his innings by playing percentage cricket.

Dhawan went berserk in post lunch session

Post lunch, Dhawan hit the fifth gear hitting more than hundred runs in the session, a feat he has achieved for the second time in his career. Incidentally, Galle is the venue where the Indian opener got his last Test ton in 2015. He achieved three figures off just 110 balls by virtue of a controlled sweep shot which sped to the boundary. The left-hander opened up after reaching his milestone, getting his next 90 runs off just 58 balls. He looked on course to a double hundred but a rash shot, which was caught at mid off- meant that he fell short of the milestone by 10 runs.

Such was the quality of his stroke play, that he amassed 126 off 90 balls between lunch and tea. Only Virender Sehwag has scored more runs in a session for India: 133 against Sri Lanka in Mumbai back in 2009. In all, he hit 31 boundaries and never tried to hit one across the ropes till he reached the score of 190. His brazen knock resurrected the memories of his sizzling debut at Mohali against Australia in 2013.

Kohli succumbs to a short ball again

After an exasperated time in the field, Sri Lanka finally broke through when they sent Dhawan back at the cusp of tea. Virat Kohli’s vulnerability against the short ball early in his innings was exposed by Nuwan Pradeep when he bounced out the India skipper for 3. At 286 for 3, Sri Lanka had a foot in the door. This is when Pujara came to the fore. In company of vice captain Rahane, he added 113 runs for the fourth wicket. The scoring rate wasn’t the same in the third session but the duo ensured that India doesn’t squander the efforts of Dhawan before the close of play.

It appeared that Pujara began the season where he left four months ago. The right-hander was the top run-getter during India’s strenuous 13-Test home season. He notched up yet another hundred, the 12th of his 49 Test career. Unlike Dhawan, Pujara did not offer a single chance during his 247 ball knock. He remained unbeaten at stumps on 144, looking good to notch up a double century tomorrow.

Rahane starts steadily

Rahane was very sedate in his approach early in his innings. He was peppered with a lot of short balls by Nuwan Pradeep but the Mumbaikar chose to let them go by. He was positive against the spinners, using his feet to knock the ball into the gaps. Rahane hasn’t had the best of times in Test cricket and will be keen to kick on from his overnight score of 39.

For Sri Lanka, only Nuwan Pradeep looked penetrating with the ball, picking all three wickets. Stand-in skipper Rangana Herath was played pragmatically by the Indians on the docile wickets of Galle which offered negligible turn on the first day. India will look to push on tomorrow. They wouldn’t want to bat again in this Test and will be eyeing a score in excess of 650.

Sri Lanka have been shut out of this game by a strong batting performance by the visitors. To their advantage, the ball will be relatively new tomorrow which can be used by the faster men in the first hour of the day.

Brief Scores:

India – 399 for 3 (Shikhar Dhawan 190, Chetashwar Pujara 144*, Nuwan Pradeep 3/64).