AHMEDABAD, 17 December 2005 — A distracted India will look for inspiration from Anil Kumble’s 100th Test to seal a series victory against Sri Lanka in the third and final match starting tomorrow.
The hosts lead 1-0 after leg spinner Kumble captured 10 wickets to help achieve an emphatic 188-run victory in the second Test in Delhi. The rain-marred opening game ended in a draw.
The 35-year-old bowler, India’s chief match-winner at home for over a decade, will become only the fifth Indian to play in 100 Tests when he turns out at the Motera Stadium.
Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and Dilip Vengsarkar are the other Indians to have played over 100 Tests.
However, cricket-mad India has been engulfed by the huge row surrounding the abrupt removal of former captain Saurav Ganguly for the Ahmedabad Test.
The national media has slammed the way in which he was axed, with politicians and fans from Ganguly’s sports-crazy West Bengal state insisting the nation’s most successful test captain deserved a better farewell.
The hosts still look set to dash a demoralized Sri Lanka’s hopes for a maiden Test victory on their sixth tour of India.
Sri Lanka’s main worry will be batting, which let them down on a firm Ferozeshah Kotla pitch despite off spinner Muttiah Muralitharan’s seven-wicket haul in the first innings.
Although Muralitharan, the second highest wicket-taker in Test history, suffered a thigh strain in Delhi and batted with a runner in the second innings, captain Marvan Atapattu has said it was nothing serious.
Only Atapattu and Mahela Jayawardene have been consistent in the batting line-up which repeatedly collapsed during their 6-1 one-day series thrashing in India last month.
Opening batsman Avishka Gunawardene could be axed after scoring 4, 25 and 9, dismissed each time by seamer Irfan Pathan after failing to move his feet and trying to play too many shots.
That could mean a test debut for fellow left-hander Upul Tharanga, a talented 20-year-old batsman who has played 10 one-dayers.
