Tea report: Sri Lanka steady after dismissing India for 393

Kumar Sangakkara walked out to a pompous response and a guard of honour by the Indian players in his final international appearance. The left-hander, coming out at the fall of Sri Lanka's first wicket after they had dismissed India for 393 in the first innings, bided his time before registering himself on the score-board.
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Once he ran that all-important single, Sangakkara (29*) and Kaushal Silva (30*) batted their way to an unbeaten partnership of 64 runs to help Sri Lanka recover from 1 for 1 to end an adventurous second session of Day two at 65 for 1.Sri Lanka trail India by 328 runs, and had the fielding side latched on to the couple of narrow chances they had, the equation would have been strikingly different.
Match Scorecard
Much like Sri Lanka in the first session, the Indian bowlers put the ball in the right areas in the first 30 minutes of the session. Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma bowled a testing line and length first up. Their pace did trouble the Sri Lankan batsmen at first, but after the first six overs, Silva and Sangakkara found life relatively easy in the middle. Sangakkara did well to leave quite a few deliveries - an indication that he might be setting himself up for a big innings and add to the amazing record he has at the P Sara Oval (over 900 runs at an average of in the 70s.)
After being dismissed seven short of the 400-run mark, India needed a breakthrough early on to put the home team under pressure. And Umesh, making a comeback of sorts in Test matches for India delivered with his very first ball with the wicket of Dimuth Karunaratne. The left-handed opener missed a gentle half-volley and was out leg before. Though the ball seemed to be angling down leg, umpire Rod Tucker thought otherwise. It has now been 11 innings since the Sri Lanka openers put up a fifty stand in Tests. Their first wicket has averaged just 22.45 in those innings.
The new-ball pair of Ishant and Umesh peppered both Sangakkara and Silva with a few short deliveries, but Umesh in particular, drifted a few onto the batsmen's pads for them to find gaps on the leg side. Sangakkara cracked a full-length Umesh delivery towards the cover boundary for his first boundary and Silva followed it with a couple of boundaries of his own. The opener, after a jittery beginning, found his feet and with six boundaries remained unbeaten on 30.
India had their moments - Stuart Binny missed out on his first Test wicket after he had dismissed Silva off a no-ball and Ravichandran Ashwin had Sangakkara dropped by Ajinkya Rahane at slips in what could have been a spectacular catch had he held on to it. Even though Binny's teasing movement outside off and Ashwin's turn created a few anxious moments for the pair, it didn't cause Sri Lanka any harm.
Sri Lanka took three overs after lunch to rattle India out as Ranagna Herath picked up their last two wickets to end with 4 for 81. After the late dismissal of Rohit Sharma on the first day, India's hopes of any resistance from Ashwin suffered a blow in the second over of the day. Respite came from Amit Mishra, who kept India alive with a 46-run alliance for the seventh wicket.
Giving him company was Saha, who was mostly decisive with his shot making. The Bengal wicketkeeper-batsman made the most of the lucky escape he had in the first half hour when a Prasad delivery failed to dislodge his bails and got to his second Test fifty just before the break.
Mishra batted with determination. He defended well to begin with, but once the second new ball lost its shine, began throwing his bat at it. Some connected, some didn't. Some even took the inside edge of his bat, but those lapses only helped get India get bit of a move on in terms of the scoring-rate. As Mishra spent more time, his confidence grew, so much that he even reverse-swept Tharindu Kaushal, who continued to offer gifts to the batsmen, for four. His innings ended when he offered a thin edge to Dushmantha Chameera, who banged it in short and moving slightly away.
Brief Scores: Sri Lanka 65 for 1 (Kaushal Silva 30*, Kumar Sangakkara 29*; Umesh Yadav 1 for 18) trail India (393 all out) by 328 runs.
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