Who have thought that a man who was out of action since last 19 months will suddenly make a dashing comeback to the international arena? But so called bad-boy S.Sreesanth proved many wrong and produce devastating display of seam bowling to put India on the threshold of a remarkable victory in the second Test against a hapless Sri Lanka at Kanpur.
Sreesanth picked up 5 for 75 to help India to bowl out Sri Lanka for just 229 runs and then M.S.Dhoni enforced the follow-on just after tea to give his bowlers more chance to bowl out the Lankans in the second inning. However it seems that the result of this test match will be out before needing to play on fifth day. At stumps Sri Lanka were tattering at 57 for the loss of four crucial wickets.
It needs some miracle to save Sri Lanka from a heavy defeat which is unlikely to be happening. Resuming the day on 60/1, Sreesanth was the man who started a superb bowling spell to dismiss T.Paranavitana, K.Sangakra and T.Samarweera just before lunch to leave Sri Lanka in a dire state at 138/5.
Apart from few forty’s no Sri Lankan batsman able to score fifty and finally they bowled out for 229. Getting a huge lead of 413 runs, it was matter of few seconds when Indian captain M.S.Dhoni asked Sri Lanka to bat again on a wicket which started to provide ample support to the spinners.
Sri Lanka didn’t started well in their second innings and loss the opener T.Dilshan very quickly on the bowling of S.Sreesanth. An arm bowl of Sehwag them removed the other opener T.Paranavitana to reduce the Sri Lankan score to 2/37. However the decisive moment of the collapse, and something that exposed the visitors' mindset, was the run-out of Mahela, the first-innings top scorer. Once Mahela got out it seems that something has hit the Sri Lankan captain and he also lost his wicket by playing on to the stumps for the second successive time in the day.
Now it’s just matter of few sessions for Indians to wrap up the test match and take a unbeatable lead of 1-0 in three match series.
