India allowed Sri Lanka to post 284 in the first innings despite reducing the hosts to 90/5.
Despite India's dominance in the ongoing Galle Test against Sri Lanka, Cheteshwar Pujara was critical of the visiting spinners on Day 3 of the match.
After racking up 462 in their first innings courtesy of a maiden Test century by Devdutt Padikkal (167), India bundled out the hosts for 284, gaining a substantial 178-run lead.
The lead could have been much bigger as the tourists had reduced Sri Lanka to 90/5 at one stage. However, the home team staged a fightback, thanks to a 146-run stand between Niroshan Dickwella (80) and Sonal Dinusha (100).
Manav Suthar led the wickets column for India with four scalps, while Ravindra Jadeja picked up three.
While Manav Suthar (4-76) and Ravindra Jadeja (3-57) shared seven wickets between them, Kuldeep Yadav’s inability to choke runs or look threatening allowed Sri Lanka to stage a recovery.
During a discussion on Cricinfo, Pujara emphasized that a frontline wrist-spinner needs to dictate terms on turning tracks. Kuldeep leaked runs at an economy rate of 4.64 per over for a solitary wicket, preventing India from sustaining pressure from both ends.
“Kuldeep was bowling well. I was little surprised by Kuldeep and Shubman’s strategy of going wide of off stump. They could have stuck to the stump line. You have to keep the stumps in play. Kuldeep can flight the ball. When you go outside the off stump, the only way you can pick up a wicket is by getting a top edge. He should have bowled slightly better against left-handers,” Pujara said.
“When both the left-handers were dominating, all our spinners struggled to bowl against them. The batters were sweeping and reverse-sweeping. That was a phase I think our spinners could have been slightly better. Once the ball got softer, our spinners were finding it challenging to spin the ball and to generate that pace and nip off the pitch,” he added.
Coming to the match, Sri Lankan bowlers staged a disciplined fightback on Day 4 of the first Test against India at Galle. They successfully triggered an aggressive batting collapse to bowl the visitors out for 193 runs in their second innings. Seamer Asitha Fernando led the attack by claiming 4 wickets for 31 runs, while spinner Prabath Jayasuriya picked up 3 for 43.
Despite the bowlers' exceptional effort in limiting India's second-innings scoring, Sri Lanka face a daunting target of 372 runs for victory. Rishabh Pant (66) and Devdutt Padikkal (44) were top scorers for India in the second essay.