S Sreesanth's five-wicket haul rocked Sri Lanka and the islanders were on the verge of follow on at tea on the third day of their second cricket Test against India here today.
In reply to India's mammoth first innings total of 642, Sri Lanka were tottering at 219 for eight at tea.
Muttiah Muralitharan (6) and Chanaka Welegedara (3) were in the middle at the break with Sri Lanka trailing the hosts by a massive 423 runs.
Sreesanth was the pick of the Indian bowlers today, claiming five for 75. Back in the side after 19 months in the wilderness, the Kerala pacer grabbed, with both hands, what the Green Park track had to offer.
He got rid of both the overnight batsmen and could have added Mahela Jayawardene to his scalp but for a confusion between Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Sachin Tendulkar.
Towards the end, he added Thilan Samaraweera (2), Prasanna Jayawardene (39) and Rangana Herath (11) to his scalps.
Sreesanth hit Tharanga Paranavitana (38) on the shoulder early this morning to signal his intention before prising him out and nearly had Mahela Jayawardene caught in the next ball, but Dhoni and Tendulkar could not decide who should go for it and let the ball race away for a four.
Undeterred, Sreesanth went on to remove Kumar Sangakkar (44) and Samaraweera in similar fashion — both dragging it onto their stumps — to compound Sri Lanka's crisis.
Having lost Tillakaratne Dilshan for a golden duck yesterday, both the overnight Sri Lanka batsmen resumed at 66 for one but with Sreesanth exploiting the early juice in the wicket, life was never easy.
Paranavitana thick edged Sreesanth for a streaky boundary but was in all sorts of trouble against the Kerala pacer, who bent his back and maintained a probing line.
Paranavitana copped one on his body as well when he took his eyes off a bouncer and Sreesanth finally had him when the batsman poked at an away going delivery and Dhoni dived to his left to pouch a smart catch.
The same alacrity was, however, missing in the very next ball which came off new man in Jayawardene's blade and Dhoni did not even made an attempt as the ball raced through between him and Tendulkar at first slip.
Sreesanth was understandably exasperated but he did not have to wait long for his next success.
Sangakkara could not gauge the slowness of the track and played a fractionally premature shot to drag the Sreesanth delivery onto his stumps and left shaking his head in disgust.
Another 10 runs on board and Sri Lanka were without the service of Thilan Samaraweera (2), whose exit was virtually a carbon copy of Sangakkara's dismissal.
Dhoni replaced Sreesanth with Harbhajan Singh and the offie responded by pushing his fifth delivery of the day through Angelo Mathews' (13) gate and clipping the bail.
Their top half blown away for 134, Sri Lankan could have been in deeper crisis but Rahul Dravid fluffed a catch after Jayawardene had edged Harbhajan.
The Jayawardenes — Mahela (47) and Prasanna (39) — had stitched together a massive 351-run partnership in the Motera shirtfront in Ahmedabad and the team required a similar effort today. But the players with identical surnames couldmanage just 60 before Prasanna edged Sreesanth.
Mahela, on the other hand, could not make the most of the two lives he got and became Pragyan Ojha's first Test victim, chipping him to Sachin Tendulkar at mid on.
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