Team India has come under fire from former Indian player Mohammad Kaif for their inability to find a chink in the armor of Sonal Dinusha in the second innings of the second Test match against Sri Lanka. According to Kaif, the visitors had sufficient information and assistance to recognize and exploit the Sri Lankan batter's obvious weakness.
Dinusha led Sri Lanka to a draw with an undefeated 133 in the second innings of the Colombo Test after hitting a century in the first. According to Mohammad Kaif, the onus was on India's bowling team and coaching staff as a whole, not only Gill.
"Every batter has a shortcoming somewhere. You need to find where the shortcoming is. I am not talking about Gill. I am talking about the entire bowling unit and even the coaching staff. Everyone sits together and discusses that he scored a hundred in Galle and where we can trap him when he comes now.
Tactically, I agree that they attacked less, the field was opened up yesterday, and the drive ball wasn't bowled. Saransh Jain had dismissed him with that after his hundred. Mohammed Siraj had bowled a full ball, and he left it because he doesn't like playing the drive. He doesn't like playing shots there," Kaif said on Sony Sports.
India's bowling resources, in Kaif's opinion, made its incapacity to take advantage of that vulnerability even more perplexing. Dinusha was dismissed for 103 by debutant off-spinner Saransh Jain in the first innings against India, demonstrating that full-length bowling might have created an opportunity.
"You are talking about India. It's not a club match that you got late. A video analyst is sitting, a stats person is sitting, and six or seven coaches are sitting," he added.
Kaif also pointed to the limited experience India's younger bowlers have of operating deep into Test matches, particularly on pitches that change as the game progresses. But by the time India started the second Test, he believed Dinusha should no longer be an unknown quantity.
"Our modern young bowlers play very rarely on such a pitch. They don't play on the fifth day. A test match doesn't go that long. So, they also don't know how to tackle it, and we have not seen this batter. They haven't seen him at all. So, there was a slight surprise package as well. The mistake happened in the second Test match. I can agree that you hadn't seen him in the first Test match. In the second Test match, you won't find a single boundary with a cover drive. He has played the pull, sweep, and reverse sweep, but not the cover drive," Kaif observed.
Dinusha ended the two-Test series with 420 runs at an average of 140 and was named Player of the Match after scoring three centuries in the series.
India won the two-Test series 1-0 after their 165-run victory in Galle, but the draw in Colombo denied Gill's side another WTC win. This result has hampered India’s chances for qualification in the final of the WTC 2027.
India will next face New Zealand in two Tests, first in Wellington from November 19 to 23 and then in Christchurch from November 27 to December 1. Their next assignment will be hosting Australia for the five-Test Border-Gavaskar Trophy beginning in January 2027.
