Hi friends here in this article let us discuss about the performance of India in the first day of the second test, held at Kanpur. After a tremendous effort by Gambir and Sachin to rescue India in the first test, India goes into the second test with full of hope and confidence. Green Park, Kanpur is the venue of the second test and after 3 days break from the first test, this is a great test for India, because this is a good ground for India, as they managed to win the previous test here by 8 wickets against South Africa in just 3 days.

Again toss is a crucial factor and Dhoni was lucky for the second consecutive time, and he elected to bat again. Sangakara was really disappointed for losing the toss again, but he hoped that the team will take quick wickets as they did in the first test match. Sri Lanka pacer, who did a great job in the first test bowling at a speed of over 145 Km/hr, was injured and he was replaced by Ajantha Mendis. This was a tricky decision made by Sri Lanka, as they believed that the pitch would support spinners, because even in the previous match held here, Harbhajan Singh grabbed seven wickets.

Apart from that, Sri Lanka was very lucky in having Dilshan for the team, because it was reported that he injured his nose during the practice session. On the other hand, India made a couple of changes and it is believed to be a good decision. Ishant Sharma, who was not in good form, is replaced by a Sreesanth and the leg spinner Amit Mishra is replaced by Prajan Ojha.So India started cautiously as they don’t want to collapse like that of the first test, where India lost 4 wickets in quick session in the first innings.

But again Sehwag played a loose shot, but fortunately the catch was dropped in the slip by Mahela Jayawardena. Actually it was a very simple catch at the slip for Jayawardena, but due to the over confident attempt from Prasana Jayawardena, Mahela was distracted and missed a golden opportunity and this proved to be very costly, as Sehwag went to make a century, with a strike rate of over 100.After this drop catch, Sehwag understood that he should be slow and steady and he did the same and at one stage he was very slow, not the usual Sehwag, and scored 6 runs from 24 balls, while Gambir was scoring runs very easily.

But as a matter of fact, Sehwag surpassed Gambir score and went on to make his 5o.India finished the first session with 131/0 in 26 runs at a run rate of 5, with both the openers scoring century. The post lunch session was a great one for India as Sehwag smashed all the spinners and he reached his century in a style, with a four, at a strike rate of over hundred. He also struck 2 sixes and also scored a hatrick four in Murali’s over, before getting out in the next Murali Over, trying for a shot in the extra cover region, where he was caught by Tilakaratne Dilshan.

Next came the wall of Indian cricket, Rahul Dravid, who is in his form of life and he did a great job supporting Gambir, who scored 167 runs before getting out caught and bowl by Muralidharan.Dravid was 85 not out at the end of day one, along with Sachin who is 20 not out, with India finishing the day with 417/2 in 90 overs, which is India’s highest score in day 1.So we hope that India crosses 700 runs in day 2 beor declaring and with such a great platform, let us hope we can win the match and thke the lead in the series.

• Written by Raaghavan Krishnamurthy.
• In category Cricket.
• 14 years ago.

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