Sri Lanka startled by Galle's turn and bounce

When Sri Lanka's openers were bounced out cheaply by India seamers on a dry Galle pitch, it was easy to imagine the hosts were about to have a bad day. By the evening, Sri Lanka were dropping catches, spurning run-out opportunities, and generally treating the ball like a VIP, sometimes escorting it toward the rope, other times letting it pass freely through the guard-of-honour arch formed by their legs.

Galle used to be Sri Lanka's sure thing. It is often the first stop on a Test tour so that Sri Lanka can distract foreign players with the beach and the seafood, then kick them into the dust on the field. Now, Sri Lanka are in danger of losing successive Tests here. If the match goes poorly for them from now, they will have a third loss in Galle in four games.

Kaushal Silva was dropped on 4, but soon after, he became a prop in the cricket gods' campaign for a universal DRS. Caught at second slip off what was probably just his arm guard, Silva was immediately given out and had no access to recourse. And so, nice and early in the series, the BCCI's puzzling stance on technology was brought into sharp focus.

Lahiru Thirimanne was then a prop in what seems like his own campaign to be dropped from the Test team. He edged R Ashwin to slip for 13, having averaged just 18 in the series against Pakistan.

Kumar Sangakkara batted in a difficult situation, at No.4. But two Tests before he has retired, it is already time to begin the "Bring Back Sanga" campaign, preferably with hashtag, some crowd-funded billboard ads, and a line of drunken men willing to paint individual letters on their bellies. Sure, Sangakkara is presently playing for Sri Lanka in body, but has he quite been there in spirit in the past few innings? Is the man who has hit 5, 0, 34 and 18 in his most recent knocks, really the superman who in 2014 scored more international runs than anyone ever has in a calendar year?

Sangakkara was out middling a shot straight to a silly mid off in this innings. Last year, only the filthiest of long hops and full tosses were poked so gamely to fielders. His batting computer was supremely calibrated to counter good bowling. It took the balls that did not belong at Test level to crash it.

The delivery from Ashwin - a sharply-turning, well-flighted ball pitching on about off stump - was the kind that would have been defused with nonchalance eight months ago. Sri Lanka need Sangakkara™ to return for his three final innings. They need him to resume hitting hundreds while seeming bored out of his skull. They need him to slow the fire on their burning ship.

It is not just the Sri Lanka team, but the entire English domestic system that has its reputation on the line here. Some Sri Lanka fans complain that the likes of Lasith Malinga and Thisara Perera have been ruined by the IPL. As Sangakkara averages 21.4 in Tests since he began playing for Surrey, maybe it's a matter of time until County cricket begins to attract the same ire. Though, given the failure of Jehan Mubarak - a virtuoso from Sri Lanka's own first-class system - it can sometimes seem like there is no domestic league in the universe that can adequately prepare Sri Lankan batsmen for Tests.

The two men that did prosper, prospered quickly and not nearly long enough. Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal's 79-run stand came from 120 balls. Between them, the pair struck 16 boundaries - more than double the rest of the team combined.

"When I was at the crease we talked about how we could get out of this bad situation," Chandimal said. "If a good ball came, we would end up with no runs and we would have given our wicket away as well. We decided that if a loose ball comes we'll go after it. We tried to recreate a one-day match feeling. Unfortunately, Angelo got out, otherwise, if we could have put on another 100 runs, it would have been a good total."

By way of explaining his team-mates' collapse, Chandimal said that Sri Lanka had batted first expecting the customary dry track in Galle, but that they did not expect the bounce Ishant Sharma and Varun Aaron got from the surface. He added that when the spinners arrived, Sri Lanka "didn't think that there would be that much turn on a day one pitch".

Essentially, it seems like Sri Lanka were confused by the bounce on the deck and lost a couple of wickets, then re-confused by the turn on it, and lost a few more. Today they seemed an easily startled lot. The batsmen saw a turning Galle deck and reacted with a stunned awe more deserving of, say, a flock of penguins invading the pitch.

Though the hosts had momentarily forgotten the ball can turn in Galle, their fans will hope they will remember the track is often even more treacherous for the team batting last. There is still a route back into this match for Sri Lanka, but it does not involve playing spin poorly in the second innings.