Virender Sehwag as open as ever

Colombo: When Virender Sehwag’s bat talks, his opponents only listen. It happened on Wednesday.

The India opener had the Sri Lankan bowlers at his mercy with a blistering unbeaten knock and led India’s strong reply on the Day Two of third Test at the P Sara Oval here on Wednesday.

The Delhi dasher blasted his way to an unbeaten 97 after the Indian bowlers, who struggled throughout the series, tasted success for the first time on this spinner-friendly track.

Pragyan Ojha led the way with four wickets, his best in Tests so far, while Ishant Sharma finished with 3/72. Sri Lanka would have been in trouble but for middle-order batsman Thilan Samaraweera’s unbeaten century. The right-hander’s undefeated 137 helped the hosts post 425 runs on the board.

Having batted for a little over a session — 35 overs to be precise — the visitors were strongly stationed at 180 for 2 with Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar (40) at the crease.

Sehwag, meanwhile, breached the 7,000-run mark in Tests on Wednesday. Incidentally, but not surprisingly, more than 4,000 of those runs have come off boundaries.

Sehwag, the most successful Indian batsman so far in the series, continued his dominance over the hosts with his aggressive batting. He started cautiously and handled Lasith Malinga perfectly. But once he got going, it was difficult to stop him.

Chanaka Welegedara was greeted with three successive boundaries, all in different regions. A slash over point was followed by a pull and a straight drive through mid-on. That marked the arrival of danger for Lanka.

Murali Vijay struggled against Malinga but then held his nerve. He hit a couple of boundaries off Welegedara before giving a simple catch to Ajantha Mendis off Malinga. The  score was 49/1.

One-drop Rahul Dravid was greeted with a couple of bouncers but he then got into the groove and looked confident and middled the ball well. He played some graceful cuts and cover drives off Malinga and Welegedara.

Just when the right-hander looked good for a big one, luck had something else in store. Dravid missed an incoming delivery, bowled by Angelo Mathews, and was trapped leg-before while playing across.

Sehwag continued his scoring spree at the other end. He had Tendulkar for company. The master blaster preferred to play a waiting game by offering Sehwag the strike. The duo has put up 88 runs.

Earlier, Samaraweera gave some headache to the Indian bowlers by hanging in there and hitting boundaries at regular intervals. In the process, he slammed his 12th hundred in his 60th Test. He and Mathews shared 89 runs for the fifth wicket, but once the latter was out, the remaining wickets fell quickly. Samaraweera remained unbeaten on 137.