SMILING ASSASSIN: Anil Kumble, who struck four times in quick succession, is joy unbounded after removing the well-set Marvan Atapattu in the last over of the day on Sunday. — Photo: S. Subramanium

New Delhi: How things change! The champagne after Sachin Tendulkar's 35th had barely gone flat and the crowd's osmosis into the Ferozeshah Kotla here on a chilly Sunday morning had just begun, when the second Videocon Cup Test turned. And just as Sri Lanka gained the ascendancy, it turned again four hours later.

At 245 for three overnight, with Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly ensconced like limpets, India started the second day looking to pummel Sri Lanka into submission, eradicate any thoughts the islanders may have had of winning, and inflict scars both deep and long-lasting.

Instead off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan cleaved the match open with a spell of five for 23 in 10.4 overs as the Indian innings imploded like a termite-chewed strut 45 minutes before lunch. Then captain Marvan Atapattu and Mahela Jayawardene batted with vim and dash before Anil Kumble struck late with four wickets.

On a day of vicissitudes, Atapattu fell as the shadows lengthened, shifting the balance of power, and Sri Lanka finished at 198 for six, 92 behind with the match fascinatingly poised. If Jehan Mubarak can cobble together something of substance with the tail, the match will compress into a one-innings shootout.

Magnificent drivers

V.V.S. Laxman and Tendulkar — during his second fifty — had been masterful on Saturday. It wouldn't be paltering with the truth to say the Sri Lankan pair matched them on Sunday. Atapattu and Jayawardene adopt similar methods at the crease. Both are magnificent drivers through the off-side, lowering their centre of gravity as they bend and stretch into the stroke.

After Irfan Pathan removed Avishka Gunawardene and Kumar Sangakkara with a touch of reverse swing and a few inches of extra bounce respectively, Jayawardene, who had played a special knock in Chennai, eased into Pathan and dabbed at Kumble to kick-start the partnership.

Atapattu caught up with an Agarkar delivery late and persuaded it to the third-man. The stroke of the day was a square-drive — Atapattu didn't rearrange his feet as he waited for a Kumble top-spinner, he merely adjusted his hands and met the ball in a conciliatory gesture. At the point of contact, wrists suddenly unloaded through the line.

The spinners were played with felicity. Both stepped down, passed the close catching men and turned it as desired. They swept to throw the tweakers of their length and stepped back to capitalise on the error that ensued. At 175 for two, still 115 adrift, Jayawardene swept at Kumble. The cruel irony of batsman's first mistake being his last has been alluded to by many a disconsolate practitioner of the art.

To give Kumble a sniff is to throw open the doors and invite him in. Thilan Samaraweera was the unfortunate recipient of a leg-break that turned at sharp pace and crashed into off-stump as he stood squared up and nonplussed. Kumble then flicked a flipper through Tillakaratne Dilshan as Sri Lanka went to 179 for five. And just before stumps, Gautam Gambhir at short-leg moved smartly to his right to intercept an Atapattu edge.

It had started so well for the Sri Lankans. They had found sphinxes in umpires Taufel and Ghauri disinclined to raise the finger on Saturday. Sunday found them more obliging. Muralitharan's gyrations during delivery make his doosra roughly as readable as a fine-print software manual and twice as uncomfortable.

Ganguly padded up to a doosra and Sachin Tendulkar (109, 310m, 196b, 14x4, 1x6) missed sweeping an off-break from around the wicket. The first may have hit, the second couldn't possibly have.

The new batsmen found the unrelenting pressure a little too stifling and departed with the grace of alarmed hens. Yuvraj Singh — always uncomfortable starting against spin — was declared caught close in. But there was little doubt about M.S. Dhoni. A doosra from around the stumps had him playing inside the line in a doomed attempt to glide to third-man. Seven wickets fell for 45 in 21 overs, and Muralitharan had his 48th five-for.

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