Hosts India finished the opening day’s play of the first Test at Ahmedabad at an incredible 385 for 6 after being reduced to a disastrous 32 for 4 within the first hour of the match. Rahul Dravid proved his class yet again when the chips were down and partnered with Yuvraj Singh and Skipper MS Dhoni to steer India out of trouble. ‘The Wall’ – Rahul Dravid remained unfinished on 177 and MS Dhoni played a Captain’s knock to come up with his second Test hundred. Dravid also became the fifth player to cross 11,000 test runs during his big hundred.

MS Dhoni won the crucial toss which gave his team the opportunity to bat first on a good wicket. India stuck with a predictable line-up of seven batsman and four bowlers. Sreesanth had to sit out. Sri Lanka came up with some surprises with Nuwan Kulasekara and Thilan Thushara missing out. Chanadaka Welegedara and Dammika Prasad got selected ahead of them. But the biggest decision was to drop Ajantha Mendis and retain left arm spinner Rangana Herath.

Sri Lanka had a dream start in rattling the Indian top order with left armer Chanaka Welegedara swinging the ball both ways to make inroads. The 28-year-old Welegedera got an unsure Gambhir inside edging onto the stumps and then followed up with a late inswinger to trap Sehwag lbw. Three balls after Sehwag’s fall, Sachin Tendulkar got cleaned up by one that nipped back sharply to knock his off stump bail through the gate. And six balls later, VVS Laxman too disappeared to the dressing room after chopping a drive off Dammika Prasad onto his stumps. India were out of the Test Match it seemed with the score tottering at 32 for 4 in the 8th over. They were in the danger of getting bowled out very cheaply like before against South Africa at this same venue when they could put up just 76.

Fortunately for India, the most important batsman survived the early blows and it was none other than Rahul Dravid. Yuvraj Singh walked into the middle in a situation that wasn’t new for him. The left hander had already featured in a rear-guard action against Pakistan along with Sourav Ganguly when India faced the same kind of pressure. Yuvraj replicated the same fightback and along with India saw through the difficult first session. At Lunch, India had started to claw back steadily at 105 for 4 in 25 overs with Dravid on 45 and Yuvraj on 35.

After lunch, Dravid and Yuvraj eases past their fifties but their partnership was broken when the latter lobbed a simple catch to covers off Murali against the run of play. Yuvraj fell in the 37th over having scored 68 (from 93 balls with 13 fours). The left hander put on 125 runs for the 5th wicket with Dravid. Sri Lanka now had got back the chance of dismissing India inside the 220-mark. But that wasn’t the case with Skipper MS Dhoni continuing Yuvraj’s good work and giving the right kind of support to Dravid. India went into Tea smoothly without any further damage to 221 for 5 in 54 overs. Dravid was just two runs short of his century and Dhoni worked his way to nearly 30.

The final session was a repeat of the previous one with Dravid putting up another big partnership. The Sri Lankan spinners – Muralitharan and Herath failed to get any purchase off the wicket and that left the Indian pair to dominate them with ease. After an hour’s play, India was out of trouble completely at 299 for 5 in 70 overs with the bowlers getting tired totally. MS Dhoni got to his second Test match hundred but fell just moments before the close of play when he edged a cut shot off the second new ball to the keeper from the expensive Dammika Prasad. Dhoni got out scoring a well-paced 110 from 159 balls (with 10 fours and a six) and his partnership with Dravid was worth 224 runs!

India finished Day 1 safely at 385 for 6 with Dravid still holding fort and Harbhajan Singh batting out the last few balls quite sensibly. Dravid’s unbeaten 177 took just the 251 balls and was filled with 26 fours and a six over long on off Herath. Welegedara, who did all the damage in the first session had to settle with figures of 3 for 75 in 17 overs. Muralitharan and Herath who were expected to wrap up the Indian innings after Welegedara’s blows came a cropper.

Tags: Ahmedabad, India Vs Sri Lanka, Indian Cricket, MS Dhoni, Rahul Dravid, Sri Lanka Cricket