India vs Sri Lanka, 3rd Test: No green channel to South Africa for India

The usual friendly chit-chat that acts as a delicious prelude to a bilateral Test series was eerily missing. Or even the veiled potshots, that generally manifest before India-Australia encounters. Maybe, it was because Sri Lanka were fighting battles of their own. This is a young team in prolonged transition, fighting hard to carve out an identity for themselves in long-form cricket. Their recent results-losing seven Tests this calendar year-didn’t in the first place suggest a hard-fought, intense series. Thus, even before the first ball was bowled, India were poised to steamroll over the listless visitor, a perception which stood vindicated after their crushing defeat in Nagpur.
Suffice to note that the ongoing India-Sri Lanka Test series was devoid of drama and hype. There was also the element of audience-fatigue. That they have squared up against each other in as many as nine Tests in the span of 28 months indicates the inherent lack of context to this contest. With this series being squeezed in just a month ahead of the all-important tour to South Africa, India captain Virat Kohli had complained of a cramped schedule.
The Indian team will finish their limited-overs engagement against Sri Lanka on December 24 (final T20) before they fly off to South Africa on December 27. “Unfortunately, we get only two days before we fly to South Africa after this series gets over. So we have no choice but try to be in a game situation and think of what’s coming ahead. Had we got a month off ideally, we would have done a proper preparation in a camp sort of scenario but we have to sort of make do with what we have,” Kohli had asserted at the start of this series.
His comments made the opposition look redundant, but the manner in which Sri Lanka folded up in Nagpur did nothing to reconsider this assumption. But ahead of the third Test at Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla, Sri Lanka captain Dinesh Chandimal expressed doubts on whether India had indeed gained anything tangible for their preparation for the South Africa tour. “Seeing the wicket here at the Feroz Shah Kotla, I’m not sure whether they (India) are preparing for South Africa,” Chandimal said, who observed that this was a “Nagpur wicket”. Meaning, a slow-low turner.
“I was surprised when I heard they are preparing for their South African series on these kinds of wickets,” he quipped. The Sri Lankan captain’s comments were not off the mark. Sure, the results have gone India’s way, but it had little to do with the pitch and more to do with the visitor’s inept display with both bat and ball, and on the field. Barring the opening day’s play in the first Test at the Eden Gardens, where Suranga Lakmal, Sri Lanka’s indefatigable swing bowler held sway, India’s batsmen coasted along in the subsequent days. The pitch in Nagpur was a typical Indian track, which offered abundance of runs and just ample turn and bite for Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.
These two tracks did nothing overtly to aid India’s preparation for the gruelling summer in South Africa. And going my conventional wisdom, things will not be different when the bandwagon rolls onto the national capital. The Kotla pitch will have the sprinkling of grass and early nip, but it will not be remotely as menacing as in the Newlands in Cape Town, which hosts India’s first Test next month.
Even the quality of Sri Lanka’s bowling is nowhere comparable to South Africa’s well-rounded pace battery that consists of the likes of Kagiso Rabada, Vernon Philander and Morne Morkel, and a possibility of Dale Steyn joining them later. When Chandimal was finally asked the loaded question: If it was disrespectful for India to be more concerned about their upcoming international assignment and discount the visiting team, the Sri Lankan captain remained refreshingly prosaic. “That’s up to them (India) to think of their next series. We can’t control that. But we never underestimate any team. We are focused on this series and thinking about improving in each and every game,” he added. Both Chandimal and Sri Lanka would like to improve one stat — win their first Test in India. If that happens, it will indeed be some achievement. And the last thing on India’s agenda before the South Africa series.