Ravindra Jadeja feasts on Lankan ineptitude: All-rounder follows ton with nine-wicket match haul

It may be worthwhile to recall some of the Indian landmarks in this Test, because as far as the competition is concerned, there was almost none. Rohit Sharma began his Test captaincy with a thumping victory, Virat Kohli had a decent outing of 45 in his 100th Test during which he went past 8,000 runs, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane weren’t missed in the first Test in a decade which had neither, and Ravichandran Ashwin went past Kapil Dev’s 434 Test wickets to become the second-most successful bowler for India behind Anil Kumble.

The scorecard may scream ‘dustbowl’ to some considering the Indian spinners picked up 15 of the 20 Sri Lankan wickets, and the match was over inside three days. The reality is that India had lost only eight wickets themselves in nearly five sessions of batting; and even on the third day, breaking through could have taken some hard work only if Sri Lanka had been in the mood for something that might have come close to resembling a contest.

It actually took India an hour to strike on Sunday morning after the Sri Lankans resumed their first innings on 108 for 4. As Ashwin would say later, it was hard to get batsmen out on this pitch if they were not attacking. Rohit used two short midwickets and a short extra cover but they hardly got anything uppish, although their presence kept the batsmen quiet. Ashwin was beating the bat but also the stumps, and edges weren’t carrying to slip.

Ravindra Jadeja with the match ball after taking 5 wickets. (PTI Photo)

Enter Jasprit Bumrah, with a surprise dipping off-cutter from round the stumps that straightened alarmingly after slanting in sharply. It would have been unplayable for any batsman, and Charith Asalanka was the unfortunate one on this occasion.

That was the cue for Sri Lanka to self-destruct. Niroshan Dickwella came out sweeping and even if it might have worked for a while against Ashwin if played carefully, it wasn’t advisable against Jadeja. Especially when the ball was bursting in from outside the left-hander’s off stump, and there was a deepish square leg as well as a backward square leg. The former gobbled up a top edge.

Suranga Lakmal was the best representative of Sri Lanka’s state of mind. In both innings. As soon as he came in, he charged at Jadeja only to give mid-off and mid-on catching practice for a couple of ducks. In no time, Jadeja had ripped out the tail, and Sri Lanka had gone from 161 for 4 in the 58th over to 174 all out in 65. Pathum Nissanka, who had had two lives, was stranded on an otherwise resolutely-compiled 61.

Ravindra Jadeja plays a shot. (File)

Jadeja had once spoken about it being a dream to make a century and take five wickets in the same Test, and here he realised that dream. As Rohit said about him, “Hunger drives athletes forward.” And this refined version of Jadeja is nothing if not hungry, be it with bat or ball.

No fight The only hunger that could be associated with Sri Lanka, as with any living being, was the basic one to refuel. In the four overs between the start of their follow-on innings and lunch, they lost Lahiru Thirimanne, edging to the slips for his umpteenth fall at Ashwin’s hands.

If the pace-bowling genius had come from Bumrah in the first innings, it came from Mohammed Shami after the interval. A short ball was followed by a pacy, pitched-up delivery from round the wicket, bang on the stumps and moving just a little to take Dimuth Karunaratne’s edge behind.

The short extra cover was to finally come into action when Dhananjaya de Silva found Jadeja’s length wasn’t all that driveable and popped it to the fielder. That’s the thing with Jadeja; his relentless accuracy gets highlighted all the time, but like the classical left-arm spinners of yore, he just doesn’t seem to arrive where the batsmen think he will, forcing errors from them. Even two days before the match in the nets, he’d beaten Rohit first ball on the forward defensive with flight, dip and turn.

There isn’t much to be said about the rest of the Sri Lankan follow-on, except that Ashwin and Jadeja helped themselves to four wickets each, ending with six and nine for the match respectively. Dickwella chose his strokes with a bit more caution this time to make an unbeaten 51.

Sri Lanka had one fifty partnership in the entire match, while India had three century stands in their lone innings. It wasn’t just that the visitors were totally outplayed, their batsmen barely seemed to be in the mood to put up any fight.

Skipper Karunaratne didn’t try to defend the indefensible. “The batters need to put their hands up and bat longer innings,” Karunaratne said during the post-match presentation. “When you are playing against India, you have to capitalise on the starts. It was easy to bat on this track, once you get in you have to score big. We were too defensive or too aggressive with the bat. We need to get a balance between both by rotating the strike and getting to the other end. That’s how you play a big innings.”

Constructing a big innings is likely to get harder with the pink ball under lights in the second and final Test starting in Bengaluru on March 12. That is a Saturday, so at least the weekend crowd will get its money’s worth, like it did here in Mohali, irrespective of whether Sri Lanka develop the willingness to fight in a week.