India vs Sri Lanka, 1st Test: India Run Through Top Order After Amassing 600

Swing, seam, pace and bounce. Dip, drift, turn and bounce. Ingredients that seemed largely absent when India piled on 600, their second-highest total in Sri Lanka, haunted the home side in their reply, as they ended the second day of the Galle Test five down with the follow-on mark still 247 runs away.

Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami took the top order apart, even as Upul Tharanga hurtled along with a profusion of silken off-side boundaries. Then came R Ashwin, going around the wicket to left and right-handers alike, harnessing the sea breeze and testing both edges with drift, swinging arm balls, and the occasional instance of sharp turn. Over the course of an unbroken spell of 18 overs, he gradually discovered the ideal pace and angle of seam to extract the maximum possible help from the Galle pitch, and could have easily ended the day with more than one wicket.

Umesh gave India their first breakthrough, in the second over of Sri Lanka's innings. Swing did Dimuth Karunaratne in, a full ball curling back into the left-hander from over the wicket and forcing him to play around his front pad. He missed and reviewed Bruce Oxenford's lbw decision, a wasted referral given there was no inside edge, and that the ball had pitched on middle stump and had straightened down that line.

Sri Lanka 154 for 5 (Tharanga 64, Mathews 54*, Shami 2-30) trail India 600 (Dhawan 190, Pujara 153, Rahane 57, Pandya 50, Pradeep 6-132) by 446 runs

Courtesy:ESPN