Two Houdini acts

Yesterday, India's win after staring down the barrel of a gun labelled defeat wasn't the only such act.

In the first test between Sri Lanka & Pakistan at Colombo, Sri Lanka were dismissed for 185 in their first innings, the ever improving Mohd. Asif running through a fairly strong batting order (at home, especially!) with 4/41. Sri Lanka were 32/5 at one stage! While Dilshan batted aggressively, he kept running out of partners and Kaneria feasted on the tail.

Pakistan's reply was about as shambolic. Imran Farhat played the only significant knock, but Pakistan slipped from 120/3 to 176 all out, conceding a lead of 9 runs. Maharoof, who'd do well to not chest thump from the rooftops prematurely about his evolution as an all-rounder, did what Asif-Test-Cricket-is-so-tough did for Pakistan, picking up a lot of top order wickets (4/52).

Sri Lanka now held the advantage, and so far, they haven't let it slip. They ended yesterday at 242/2 and are currently 300/3, with Sangakkara having scored his 9th test century and Jayawardene missing out on his 14th.

All this after the entire first day's play was lost due to rain. Given the way the Mohali test between India & England shaped up in spite of time lost due to rain, perhaps it is an indicator that we can have results in tests even when teams only score at between 3-3.5 runs per over. All it takes is one (or two) poor batting displays!