‘Rockstar’ Jadeja hurts Sri Lanka
The man who christened him ‘ Rockstar Jadeja’ wasn't alive to congratulate him on his first 150 plus Test score. But Indian spinner Ravindra Jadeja paid a glorious tribute to his former Rajasthan Royals captain Shane Warne--who died on Friday-with a magnificent century that propelled India to an imposing 574 for 8 declared on day two of the first Test against Sri Lanka.
Jadeja executed an immaculate innings that exposed the flaws in Sri Lanka’s selection of bowlers for their 300th Test match. After having missed the Mumbai Test against New Zealand in December, he notched up his second century, an unbeaten 175, to put India in the driving seat. He dominated the Sri Lankan bowling attack that included three seamers and one frontline spinner as opposed to the home team’s three spinners and two fast bowlers.
The 33- year- old was hardly threatened by the Sri Lanka bowling attack during his marathon innings where he stitched three crucial partnerships with Rishabh Pant ( 104) and Ravichandran Ashwin ( 130) and Mohammed Shami ( 103*), becoming the first player batting at number seven or below to be involved in three 100plus partnerships in an innings.
Jadeja--whose batting has shown marked improvement since 2018, accumulating 1,044 runs in 33 innings at an impressive average of 43.50--made 17 boundaries and three hits over the ropes during his 228-ball vigil in the middle to put themselves in a strong position to win.
Not only did he pile up runs but
did so with an aggression that helped India maintain an impressive run rate of over 4.4 during their 130 over innings which came to a halt when Indian skipper Rohit Sharma called the batters off the ground. Jadeja was just 25 runs shy of what would have been a swashbuckling maiden double ton.
India added 111 runs during the first session of play for the loss of Ashwin’s wicket. Ashwin attempted to pull a sharp bouncer off Suranga Lakmal, playing his last international series, resulting in a top-edged wicket-keeper Niroshan Dickwella. Ashwin hit eight boundaries in his 82 ball innings but missed the opportunity to celebrate his partner’s second century registered before the lunch break by stealing a single off Lasith Embuldeniya. India then added 106 runs to their innings which included an unbeaten 103 runs for the ninth wicket, before bringing the innings to a halt ahead of the tea break.
After their brilliant partnership with the bat, Ashwin and Jadeja inflicted misery into Sri Lanka’s batting as they shared three out of the four wickets that fell, to put Sri Lanka, looking for their maiden win in Indian soil, into a desperate position.
Openers Lahiru Thirimanne and Dimuth Karunaratne made 48 runs for the first wicket, surviving a penetrative Indian bowling attack in the first hour of play but
Ashwin had Thirimanne trapped leg before as Sri Lanka lost its first wicket and the first review at 48/1.
Skipper Karunaratne looked promising but was caught on the back foot on the defence off Jadeja for 28 runs as Sri Lanka lost their second wicket on 59. Umpire ruled him out l e g - b e f o re but Karunaratne reviewed without a success.
Angelo Mathews and Pathum Nissanka attempted to rebuild the innings sharing 37 runs for the third wicket before Mathews was sent back to the pavilion by Jasprit Bumrah for 22 runs. A slightly short of length delivery hit the flap of Mathew’s back pad when he tried to play for the angle and was ruled leg- before. Mathews reviewed but was given out on umpire’s call on height as Sri Lanka lost their third wicket.
Dhananjaya de Silva did little trouble to the scorecard as his eight ball innings came to an end trying to sweep Ashwin. Diminutive Pathum Nissanka was firm and remained unbeaten on 26 and Charith Asalanka (1 not out) survived an LBW appeal to resume his innings this morning and it looks only an extraordinary effort could take Sri Lanka out of danger as they are trailed by 466 runs with six wickets in hand.
And it should come from this pair and Niroshan Dickwella, the last recognised batsman in the Sri Lankan camp.