Fielding spurs Mukund to atone for first innings failure

› I think the catch and the runout gave me a lot of confidence. I have worked really hard in the off season A MUKUND, On his 2nd innings

GALLE: Those how have not followed Ab h in av Mu ku nd’ s career properly will miss out on the fact that once he was considered good enough to be part of the greatest batting lineup in Indian cricket history. And he hadn’t done badly.

On an England tour in 2011 when even Sachin Tendulkar, V VS Lax man and Vi render Se hwag struggled, Mukund got a 49 in the opening Test at Lord’s against an attack led by James Anderson. Yet, for no reason, Mukund played only one Test after that and was not seen around the Indian team till he played the Bangalore Test against Australia late last year --after a gap of six years.

He failed to make good of the opportunity at Bangalore and was left out of the playing XI again. It is in the ongoing Test against Sri Lanka that he has got a break. He couldn’t do much in the first innings and was down in the dumps. But in the second innings, he came out all focused and confident to register a polished 81. So, what has changed? The inspiring moment came in the first innings, when he pro- duced two stunning efforts at silly point, first a run-out of Upul Th ar an ga and then a low catch of Niroshan Dickwella.

“I think the catch and the runout gave me a lot of confidence. I have worked really hard in the off season. I wanted to improve on my close-in fielding and also my batting. I have put in the hard yards. I was quite disappointed it didn’t come off on the first day, but then again it happened.

“No matter how hard you work, sometimes you just get out. I came back stronger the next day. I have had a decent day but I am disappointed to get out on 81,” said Mukund.

He said that the fielding effort was the result of the hard work he put in after spilling a sitter off Steve Smith in the Pune Test against Australia.