On Island, India eye overseas triumph

India haven’t won a series in Sri Lanka in the last 22 years. Virat Kohli will look to guide his team past the finish line in the final Test. (Source: Reuters)

“SSC pitch relaid” — it’s a headline that bowlers from around the world have for years woken up hoping to find in the papers. If not they have seen it appear in their dreams. But only to wake-up and be struck by the reality, that the SSC is a bowlers’ graveyard, one which has made many question their decision to choose ball over willow for a vocation.

But then one day in the summer of 2013 it actually happened. The authorities at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) finally found a heart — as far as the bowlers are concerned anyway — and actually went ahead and relaid the centre-wicket. There is a joke doing rounds here; they found the remains of many a bowler’s hopes and their careers along with a bowler or two as well to boot. Since, there have been two Tests at the SSC both dominated by spin—one where South Africa dug in for dear life and saved the day and the other where Rangana Herath took 14 wickets to spin Pakistan out.

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Two years on, visiting bowlers have also come across the other two headlines that they have sought desperately, involving the retirements of those two batting behemoths of course who provided the rudest of welcomes to any bowler daring to enter their den—together the two scored 5233 Test runs at 74.75, including 19 centuries. It was also here that they shared their world-record stand of 624 against South Africa in 2006.

“Mahela Jayawardene retires” came out around this time last year and “Kumar Sangakkara calls it a day” is still ringing around Sri Lanka in the build-up to the third Test.

Virat Kohli & Co, however, have arrived at the SSC in seek of creating a headline of their own. Having levelled the series in comprehensive fashion with a 278-run win at the P’Sara Oval, they have the momentum and they also have a series-win up for grabs.

Finding their feet

When they landed in Sri Lanka at the start of the month, Kohli and his bunch of fearless adventure-seekers had never tasted victory as a group. Not to forget they were still unsure about their combinations, in the batting and bowling department. They were still finding their feet as a group and still coming to grips with the brand of cricket that was expected from them.

At Galle, they played five bowlers. Rohit Sharma batted No.3 and flopped. They dominated the game for three-and-a-half days and then compromised all their accumulated momentum in one disastrous session. At the Oval, they played with five batsman, four bowlers and an ‘all-rounder’. Ajinkya Rahane batted at No.3 and triumphed. They were the dominant side for most parts yet again, but this time they also kept their nerve when the finish-line was in sight. Kohli & Co finally discovered what the winning feeling was all about, after having spent months trying to devise the perfect formula for achieving it. Now they need to turn it into a habit. If the Oval was all about showing character in bouncing back from a numbing loss, the SSC will be about doing an encore.

Along the way, they have also seen pieces falling in place right along their line-up. Even if director Ravi Shastri might have declared that ‘nobody owns a batting spot in this team’, Rahane seems to have reserved a long-term lease at the spot with his century at P’Sara Oval — after Rohit Sharma failed to deliver the rent. With 17 wickets at 16.35, R Ashwin has shown that he is the ultimate leader of the spin-attack with Amit Mishra his able deputy. Ishant Sharma, despite his lack of wickets, has been the flame-bearer and the load-bearer doubled up for the bowling attack, with a bag of wickets seemingly just around the corner. And with KL Rahul having scored a match-winning century in the second Test, India now have a bank of prolific openers—even if two of them have left the tour with injuries. And in reserve, they have a batsman, who despite his untoward form of late, averages 47.11 in 27 matches.

But the crusade Team Kohli is launching in quest for the holy grail will not be an easy one, especially considering they are doing so at a fortress that Sri Lanka have preserved with great pride over the years, and one where they thrive at—as only 6 losses in 38 Tests here proves. The last time they lost here was in 2004 to Australia.

This Indian team will not only be trying to set right a rather ordinary Test record—their last series win came here in 1993 — they will also be in pursuit of setting the base for their own legacy.

Hosts in a spin

If the Premadasa is the state-of-the-art stadium that every major cricketing city — and Colombo is that — requires then the P’Sara Oval is caught in a time-warp apart from being a quaint reminder of how cricket grounds used to be. The SSC is somewhere in between with a mix of the old and the new amalgamated in a largely serene setting—an old-worldly oasis in the melting pot of Colombo.

For long this was considered a shrine for batsmen, almost like the temple you visit when you are search of runs. And the SSC has historically been kind not only to its own but also to anyone visiting. Indian batsmen alone have scored 11 centuries on this ground. But the new strip has so far shown more than a little fondness for spinners, as Herath proved last year taking nine wickets in one innings.

But such is the impact that the Indian spinners have had — and the doubts that they have instilled into the minds of the home team batsmen — that they have left the SSC staff in a quandary with regards to the amount of grass that they should leave behind on this track. And with Sangakkara gone, it’s Sri Lanka who are ringing in the changes with the hopes of getting their batting-order in working condition. With one Test to go, it’s the Lankans who are trying to find their feet in time to avoid a second-straight series loss at home to a sub-continental neighbour.

But come what may, the pitch does remain the topic on everybody’s lips as soon as you enter the gates of the SSC, just like it has forever. And it’s not only the bowlers who recall the days of yore with dread.

“I remember commentating a lot here with matches not getting over, first innings not getting over till the fifth day. So please don’t remind me of that,” Shastri bellowed when asked about his memories of the ground.

But it now rests in the young Indian team’s hands how they will eventually remember their first-ever tryst at the SSC, maybe with a headline that reads, “Kohli and Co break new ground”.