Thisara Perera is an India specialist. Even before this game, his best bowling performance had come against India. So did his best batting effort. Today, he came on to bowl after Nuwan Kulasekara had harassed the Indian top order. His captain felt it wasn't the right situation to introduce Suraj Randiv into the attack and called on Perera to bowl his seamers. It proved to be the right decision.
For some reason, Suresh Raina, who has been in good form recently, struggled to get on the front foot and paid for it. He edged one from Angelo Mathews, which led to a fierce appeal from all the close-in fielders, but wasn't given out. And along came Perera and he reproduced almost the same delivery. Raina had a lame poke and didn't seem to get an inside edge but was given out this time. It was the beginning of the Perera show.
India slid into further trouble as MS Dhoni fell after a scratchy innings. In the recent past, he has developed this habit of walking forward and across and poking uncertainly at seaming deliveries. Often, it has landed him in trouble. Today, he twice edged Perera just past the lone slip fielder placed slightly wide. On both occasions, Sangakkara was standing up to the stumps. As soon as Sangakkara went back, Dhoni walked forward and across and lunged out at another Perera delivery. Edge and gone!
Only Yuvraj Singh looked in any sort of control and he would have hoped that the lower order would hang around with him but Perera had other ideas. He had Ravindra Jadeja squeeze out an off cutter straight to gully and lured Praveen Kumar to hole out to mid-on in successive deliveries. And he went on to complete his maiden five-for when he bowled Ishant Sharma.
