After playing out a draw in the first Test at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, India and Sri Lanka locked horns in Nagpur for the second chapter of the series. Sri Lanka called the coin right and decided to begin the Nagpur Test with the willow in hand. However, things did not go as expected for Dinesh Chandimal and his men.
The Nagpur track was in favour of the batsmen, but the visitors failed to use it to their advantage. The hosts were on the point with their bowling as Virat Kohli and his men did not feel the absence of talisman Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammad Shami. Ishant Sharma made a stellar comeback into the squad and notched three wickets to his name while the spinners supported him brilliantly. The master of the carrom ball Ravichandran Ashwin picked up four scalps while Ravindra Jadeja who dropped down to the 3rd position in the ICC Test rankings got 3.
There was nothing much to talk about the Sri Lankan batting except two half-centuries from opener Dimuth Karunaratne (51) and skipper Dinesh Chandimal (57). Another batting collapse for the Lions saw their scoreboard get restricted to a mere 205 runs as they failed to survive the day.
It was a tough day on the field for local boy Umesh Yadav as he went wicketless on day 1. The Vidarbha express bowled 16 overs without a result and gave away 43 runs in the process.
Coming onto the bat, the Indian suffered an early blow in the form of Lokesh Rahul who was cleaned up by Lahiru Gamage for a score of 7. Opener Murali Vijay replaced Shikhar Dhawan for the Test match and is rooted at the crease facing 28 deliveries. The Indians ended the day with 11 runs in their bag at the loss of a solitary wicket. The game far from reaching a decisive state yet and it is wide open for the taking.