It was another bad batting display by the fabulous four as they failed again to give the Sri Lankan a slight edge over the Indians at the end of Day1. Anil Kumble after winning the toss has no hesitation in electing to bat first and his decision was once gain well supported by two deadly duos G.Gambhir (72 runs) and V.Sehwag (21 runs) as both went on to put 51 runs for the 1st wicket.
D.Prasad the debutant strike the first blow for his team by removing dangerous looking Virendra Sehwag. Rahul Dravid (10 runs) who has struggle in this series arrived to the crease to put some good show with bat but it was D.Prasad pace who got better of Rahul Dravid defence to get his second test wicket in his first match.
Sachin R.Tendulkar needing another 76 runs to become the highest run getter in test cricket once again failed with the bat and was trapped lbw by D.Prasad just before lunch to left his team struggling at 102/3.
But as much as it is easy to understand Dimika Prasad ability to bowl long spells aggressively, more difficult to understand is how he knocked over two of India's so-called fabulous four in a pre-lunch session that sowed the seeds of India's first innings destruction. His three wickets for 89 was a tribute to his style of attack.
After lunch it was all on G.Gambhir and Sauarv Ganguly get their team out of hole but S.Ganguly after playing some fabulous shot on M.Muralitharan and A.Mendis throwed his wickets away by playing a bad shot to gift his wicket to M.Muralitharan.
V.V.SLaxman (25 runs) once again foxed by A.Mendis carom ball and out stumped by H.Jayawardne. It was only 51 runs partnership between Ishant Sharma (17* runs) and Zaheer Khan (32 runs) who helped India to get close to 250 runs mark at one stage they were tattering at 198/9 with all their big guns back in the hurt.
Before close of 1st day’s play Ishant Sharma do able to strikes for his team by removing Malinda Warnapura (8 runs) who is clean bowled by beauty of delivery. Sri Lanka was 14/1 at the end of day 1 play.
For Sri Lanka A.Mendis (5/56) and debutant D.Prasad (3/82) were most successful bowlers.
If India struggle to bounce back into this test match then it was only them selves to blame since they failed to take advantage after winning the toss on beautiful wickets on P.Sara Stadium in Colombo.
