Kohli's men close to historic win as India's lower-middle order finally comes good

As Virat Kohli mentioned before the series – and as has been repeated often during – the five-bowler strategy places a huge amount of responsibility on the top-order batsmen to come good. But when they fail, the rest of the team’s batting strength must prove larger than the sum of parts.

So when India started day four at SSC Colombo at 21 for 3, with the top three batsmen having played their last innings of the series, a big test for the middle and the lower-middle order was on the cards — and they passed it with flying colours.

With knocks of 49, 35, 39 and 58 respectively, Stuart Binny, Naman Ojha, Amit Mishra and Ravinchandran Ashwin made sure that when India came out to bowl, the proverbial “all three results still possible” adage wouldn’t hold. As has been the trend in this match, batting gets much easier once the kookabura ball loses its seam, but you still need batters who can put the bad ball away and India’s less-fancied players made it count.

Binny’s 49, especially, was a knock that was filled with intent as he went about cutting, slashing and pulling the bad balls – with seven boundaries in his 72-ball 49. Ojha was much more conservative, rotating strike well before he fell for a reckless shot for the second time in two innings. Mishra and Ashwin then put on 55 runs and it was around the time Mathews had stopped trying to attack the batsmen.

Ashwin, who had been out of sorts in this series with the bat so far, played like the batsman this Indian team has known him in the recent past - with back-foot punches on either side of the wicket to the toiling faster bowlers and delicate late-cuts off the tiring spinners.

By the time Ashwin fell as the last wicket of the innings, he was the top-scorer for India.

Earlier, when Kohli and Rohit walked out to the middle on a sunny, humid morning, India were in a comfortable position but not by much. The match and the series was on the line and they were walking out to face an 8-over old ball.

Both were solid in defence against the Sri Lankan pacers, leaving well but showing a tendency to drive at the odd ball outside off-stump. Kohli repeatedly pushed outside off on deliveries – middling it a few times, getting an inside edge once that missed the leg stump by a whisker but eventually falling to his kryptonite – the swinging ball outside the off-stump that the best batsman in the Indian squad somehow feels obligated to play.

At 64 for 4, with the lead at 175, things could have gotten tricky. Rohit survived a very close LBW call from an Angelo Mathews’ in-dipper. He went hard at an outswinger outside off the very next ball and it flew between slips and the gully. But he stayed positive despite losing the upper hand in that particular over. But when Mathews was back with the ball, Rohit played two perfectly executed cover drives back-to-back that could quite easily qualify as the shots of the match.

He reached a brisk fifty after India lost Kohli at the other end, but as he has frustrated repeatedly in his career so far, fell to a reckless pull shot that went straight to deep fine leg. The fact that it was minutes before lunch led to collective hair-pulling from fans. But make no mistake, that half-century – result of the match not-withstanding – was one of Rohit’s best efforts in India’s whites.

The merits of making Sri Lanka wait till after tea before eventually getting all out can be analysed only at the end of day five - and that decision is completely on the team management. But Rohit and India’s lower-order batsmen ensured that Mathews spent most of the second session in a declaration-awaiting limbo. In essence, it was a resounding effort from India’s less-fancied batsmen.

To top it, Ishant Sharma – first when he was batting and more so when he was bowling – made sure India end the day on an adrenaline-infused high. He channeled his aggression from the row with Dhammika Prasad into a fiery opening spell which ended with two wickets - that of Upul Tharanga and Dinesh Chandimal.

If Kohli is to persist with his five-bowler strategy in the long run, India will need more of these performances from their lower order.

As it stands, Sri Lanka need to chase down a daunting 386 — 319 runs of which are still needed with seven wickets in hand and a day to play.