So complete was India’s domination over Sri Lanka that the narrative thread of the game was the wait for Kohli’s 49th hundred.
Such has been India’s imperious march in this World Cup that pretty early in the piece, once Sri Lanka’s briefly-sparkling start with the ball was negated, the game had turned into a waiting for Virat Kohli’s 49th hundred.
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Every romantic cliche was waiting to be ticked off. Sachin Tendulkar in the stands, watching. tick. Tendulkar’s huge statue unveiled just a day before, tick. A long partnership with Shubman Gill, the man he would be passing on the batting baton that he acquired from Tendulkar, tick. In 2016, after his game-saving 50 against Pakistan in the T20 World Cup at Eden Gardens, he bowed to Tendulkar who was in the stands; now it seemed another bow was just moments away. Then reality gatecrashed.
It took a fine slower cutter from Dilshan Madhushanka, the young pacer, who has his real-life inspiring tale, to terminate the dreamy afternoon. A son of a fisherman father who didn’t like him wasting his time on the sport but whose mother would encourage and create excuses to send him for tennis-ball games intervened to hush the crowd.
A dazed Kohli couldn’t react in time to stop his hands from betraying him. They waved away from him, scooping the ball into the hands of cover fielder, and he trudged off to consolatory taps from his partner Shreyas Iyer and Sri Lankans.
The knock itself wasn’t just another Kohli hundred. Rarely, if ever, has he looked so exhausted, struggling with humidity almost through his innings. Even as Gill seemed relatively unfazed by the elements, Kohli took plenty of mini-water breaks at the end of overs. He would thrust his face up, the helmet would be removed for him, and water be poured on his neck, and towel-dried. It all happened with the smoothness of a Formula One pit stop manoeuvre, barring one occasion in the end of the 18th over when the umpire stepped in for a small chat and a pat on the back. Often, he would be on his haunches at the non-striker’s end.
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But running through this hard grind was also a sense of ease. He chatted and laughed with the wicketkeeper, the Sri Lankan captain Kusal Mendis, he would intercept throws at the non-striker’s end, plucking it with his right glove, and relaying iit to the bowler. He would saunter across for punches and laughs with Gill.
Barring the initial 15 minutes or so, when he had couple of close calls – couple of aerial glances that went just wide of leg slip, a leading edge back to the bowler Dushmantha Chameera who clanged a tough chance diving to his left, punches that fell short of cover point fielder. But in a blink, along with Gill, he punctured the Sri Lankan momentum that was building up.
Madhushanka, the silent star of the World Cup , the leading wicket-taker of this tournament, pricked India’s balloon by knocking down Rohit Sharma’s off-stump with a wondrous off cutter that bent past the prod in the second ball of the game. Rohit had flicked the first – an inswinger, Madhushanka’s natural delivery from childhood according to his U-17 coach, to the square-leg boundary and the crowd were yet to settle in their seats when they were startled.
Last year, Madhushanka had met Wasim Akram, a meeting luckily caught on camera by the official website of the Sri Lanka board. Akram can be heard telling, “On slow pitches, Sri Lanka pitches, you also have to bowl the one that angles away.” Akram mimics the release, explains to the youngster the importance of the angler and the fields needed for it. It was exactly the ball Madhushanka would conjure to stun Rohit and the crowd. Both he and the tall Dushmantha Chameera moved the ball around and tested Kohli and Gill, both had reprieves too, but suddenly while still in the first Powerplay, they lost their grip on the game. The pair did what they wished: milked singles, worked the angles, hit the boundaries, and at one stage, the main thought was who would get to the hundred first. But Gill fell, tickling an intended upper cut against a slow bouncer from Madhushanka to the ‘keeper, and Kohli too fell. Hundred no 49 has to wait for now.
Two Indians were perhaps under pressure to perform: Shreyas Iyer and to an extent Mohammad Siraj too, after the roaring return of Mohammad Shami. Both indulged themselves to complete a box-office show. Iyer walloped the spin and pace, even pulled a short ball for a six, to threaten to get to his hundred before he too fell to a slower one from Madhushanka. according to the reports published in indianexpress.com .
And Siraj seemed to be waiting for his victims from the Asia Cup final to return. India’s open-chested predator seamed the ball around to knock down Sri Lankan top order and at one stage, had the figures of 9 for 21 (including the wickets taken in that Asia Cup final in Colombo). That left just one question swirling in the Mumbai air: Why did Sri Lanka choose to bowl in hot conditions when as Rohit said at the toss he has a good feeling about his pacers doing the damage under lights. There is another question floating around this World Cup: can any team bell the Indian cat?
