Until the toss, even at it, it was all going New Zealand's way. The pitch was expected to be flat, the wet outfield had done away with the morning session, the toss had been won, India's best bowler had been ruled out due to injury, and yet it all went wrong for New Zealand. Once again, India's bowlers put in an important performance just when people had stopped expecting one from them, giving the hosts a big chance of finally putting one across New Zealand.
Sreesanth found swing and accuracy in his first spell to remove the openers, then Ishant Sharma, playing his first Test since his batting heroics in Mohali, got a change of ends, extracted occasional inswing, and was rewarded with the wickets of Ross Taylor and Daniel Vettori.
Jesse Ryder and Brendon McCullum - struggling with injured calf and sore back respectively - fought heroically, but India stayed in control through patient cricket. Since they were carrying injuries in to the match, neither of the batsmen was allowed a runner. They could run only about half the runs they would have, and their hobbling association added only 42 in 19.3 overs, which didn't hurt India too much after they had restricted the visitors to 51 for 5, and then 82 for 6.
It did look like India, too, had been distracted by the injuries, for they stopped doing what had got them wickets. Instead they spread the field, asking the batsmen to run all their runs, and asked their fast bowlers to bowl bouncers to put more stress on the batsmen's injured bodies, giving up the fuller lengths that had brought them the early returns.
To use a tennis analogy, India were wary of the winners a wounded player often starts scoring when swinging blindly. They were now making the wounded players run all over the court. Unlike normal tennis matches, though, cricket goes on for days, and Ryder and McCullum fought their way to come close to a break. That would have given New Zealand hope.
Ryder, who pulled his calf muscle when sweeping Pragyan Ojha for a single that took him to 36, added 23 more, running all but four of them. In fact all of New Zealand's last 88 runs came in either fours or ones. Eight overs before bad light intervened, though, a Ryder cut off Harbhajan Singh became a low catch for Suresh Raina.
McCullum continued to fight it out, staying unbeaten on 34 off 80 balls, getting into the stance to face each of which seemed to strain his back. He seemed to have edged one when on 3, but capitalised on the umpire's mistake then, which in turn only put him through more pain.
Around noon, such pain wouldn't even have been thought of. When Vettori was walking out for the toss, though, he saw McCullum land awkwardly during fielding practice, and then come down with a back strain. A quick decision had to be made, and New Zealand went with the man who scored a double-century to save the Hyderabad Test, prepared to have him bat in the middle order.
However, the specialist batsmen hardly gave McCullum any recovery time as all but Ryder joined him off the field by the 16th over. McCullum wasn't ready to bat even when Vettori became the fifth man to fall, in the next over. Playing McCullum is a decision that will be debated long and hard in New Zealand, for it could have upset the whole team's mindset, but it should not take away from Sreesanth's first spell, or Ishant's second.
Sreesanth took some time to get into rhythm. He failed to involve the batsman for the first seven balls he bowled, operating wide outside off. Perhaps it helped that there was no McCullum eager to hit him as he warmed himself up into a rhythm. By the time he started making the batsmen play, he also started getting swing. Martin Guptill, who scored 85 at No. 3 in Hyderabad, got the best of Sreesanth. It was a back-of-a-length delivery, pitching off, making Guptill play, then shaping away a bit to take the edge. What's more, it wasn't a no-ball.
By now Sreesanth had started getting the ball to swing in towards the left-handed opener, Tim McIntosh. One of those squeezed through the gap, although the loose defence made it look more spectacular than it was.
Ross Taylor did something similar against Ishant. With his across movement on the crease, he was always going to be susceptible to anything moving in sharply. Ishant produced one of those, and Simon Taufel correctly judged that he was hit just in front of off.
Vettori, usually just the man for these situations, was bent on pulling everything short and paid the price for it. It is a shot that has got Vettori many runs, but today he could play it only twice. One of them got him an ungainly single, and the other he dragged onto the stumps from way outside off. Between those two Ishant strikes, Kane Williamson's dismissal summed up New Zealand's day. It was a full delivery from Ojha, innocuous, promising to land close enough to him, but somehow Williamson managed to scoop it to short cover.
Sri Lanka's selectors have dumped fast bowlers Dammika Prasad and Thilan Thushara, recalled seamer Nuwan Kulasekara, and included a new face in Shaminda Eranga in their 16-member squad to face West Indies in the second Test starting at the R Premadasa Stadium on Tuesday. The pair will join Dilhara Fernando and another uncapped Test fast bowler, Suranga Lakmal, who have been retained in the squad.
Chairman of selectors Aravinda de Silva said that with their main spearhead Lasith Malinga unavailable for Test matches, Sri Lanka are going through a transitional period of trying to find the right combination of fast bowlers to share the new ball in Test matches.
"Most of them don't want to play in a Test match but want to restrict themselves to playing fifty-over and T20 cricket," he said. "Some of them cannot play back-to-back Test matches. This is something unheard of in the past. In Malinga's case we have even promoted him to the top category in the player contracts, but he is not fit enough to play Test cricket."
Kulasekara played the last of his 11 Tests in December 2009 against India at Mumbai. The 24-year-old Eranga is a right-arm medium fast bowler who represents Chilaw Marians in the Premier club championships.
Sri Lanka fast bowling coach Champaka Ramanayake said that Eranga is a bright prospect and is capable of bowling around 140kph. He was discovered during the Pace Ace programme conducted by Sri Lanka Cricket in 2006. Eranga, who made his first-class debut in 2006, has taken 34 wickets at a cost of 41 runs apiece.
He is unlikely to make it to the final eleven, but 23-year-old Lakmal's prospects are bright. He has been the leading wicket-taker for Sri Lanka 'A' in recent matches, and is a skilful bowler who can swing as well as seam the ball. Although yet to play in a Test. Lakmal has appeared in six ODIs for his country.
With the recall of Kulasekara, Sri Lanka will have to decide who will play the second Test after the disappointing performance put on by Prasad and Thushara at Galle. The pair went wicketless, conceding 195 runs between them from 51 overs.
Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara was critical of the bowling. "The first six overs were probably okay, although we didn't make the batsmen play too much. But after that I thought the lines and the lengths we bowled on this track was not good enough for us to put any pressure on them either to get wickets or to cut down on the runs.
"It's two things on these tracks. No. 1 is to try and make the new ball work for us. If it doesn't work in picking up wickets how we build up pressure by bowling one side of the wicket to one set field. It's nice to limit them to one side and dry the runs up. Those are the things we got to do a bit better and when that happens with our spinners we can build a lot of pressure."
Sri Lanka squad for second Test: Kumar Sangakkara (capt), Mahela Jayawardene, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Tharanga Paranavitana, Thilan Samaraweera, Angelo Mathews, Prasanna Jayawardene (wk), Suraj Randiv, Ajantha Mendis, Nuwan Kulasekara, Dilhara Fernando, Suranga Lakmal, Rangana Herath, Thilina Kandamby, Kaushal Silva, Shaminda Eranga