S
hubman Gill won the toss again. Second time in the series now. He didn't hang around thinking about it either, just said bat first and got on with it. The SSC pitch had grass on it, sure, but it looked hard underneath, harder than Galle by most accounts, and by the time play ended on Sunday that decision had paid off pretty handsomely.
None of that was really the headline going in, though.
Saransh Jain got his Test cap on Sunday. He's 33 years and 145 days old, which sounds like a strange thing to lead with until you realize it makes him only the second Indian to debut at that age since Robin Singh did it in 1998. Twenty-eight years between them. Jain has played 54 first-class games, taken 188 wickets at an average a touch over 27, and somehow found time to score more than 2,200 runs along the way, two hundreds, 14 fifties. He didn't rush any of this. Nobody was really watching, if we're honest, until Jadeja put the cap on his head in the huddle before the first ball.
He bowls off-spin, bats left-handed, can bat as low as eight if the team needs him there instead of Manav Suthar. His dad, Subodh Jain, played first-class cricket as well, for what that's worth. Gill confirmed at the toss what everyone already suspected: Jain was in for Kuldeep Yadav, who still hadn't shaken off whatever viral thing had been bothering him since the Galle Test.
And look, there was already a cricket case against Kuldeep before he got sick. One wicket in two innings at Galle. Batted at nine. Suthar and Jadeja outbowled him easily, and so did the seamers if we're being blunt about it. Does he walk straight back in once he's fit? Nobody knows yet. That's a question for later in the tour. For now it's Jain's turn, and he'll want more than just the cap by the time this Test wraps up.
Sri Lanka shuffled their pack too. Kamil Mishara comes in on the back of some genuinely good white-ball form, takes the opening spot from Nishan Madushka. Pasindu Sooriyabandara gets a debut cap of his own, having already been out there once as a concussion sub for Dinesh Chandimal back in Galle. Two new faces for a home side that badly needs this series to look different than it currently does.
Gill's reasoning at the toss was simple enough. Surface felt firmer than Galle, he expected it to slow down and grip more for the spinners as the game went on, so bat first while the going's good. Dhananjaya de Silva said he'd have made the same call. Can't really argue with that.
For a stretch there it looked like Gill might regret winning that toss. Lahiru Kumara and Asitha Fernando got a bit of nip early on, and both KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal were gone cheaply. India at 88 for 2. Not a total mess, but not exactly the start anyone wanted either.
He'd already made a hundred in Galle. Here he was again, though this one took some luck to get moving, he was dropped on 0 and then on 1, and Sri Lanka will be replaying both of those chances in their heads tonight. A 120-run stand with Gill through the middle session more or less settled the innings. Gill fell for a tidy fifty late in the day. Padikkal kept batting, brought up his second hundred in as many Tests, then found another 74 with Jadeja before the close.
India ended day one at 300 for 5. Jain was out there at the end, unbeaten on 4, with Dhruv Jurel alongside him on 7, both with plenty left to do in the morning. Asitha Fernando was the pick of the Sri Lankan bowlers, three for 46. Lahiru Kumara and Keshara Nuwantha got one apiece and probably wanted more.
There's more to this than one day of cricket. India already lead 1-0 after that 165-run win in Galle, and taking this one gives them their first away series win since 2023, which isn't nothing. It matters for the World Test Championship table too. India sit fifth right now on a 53.33 percent points return, just ahead of Sri Lanka down in sixth at 33.33. Win here and India move closer to the top four, keeps the WTC final dream alive a bit longer.
Sri Lanka just don't want to get swept 2-0 at home. That's the honest version of their stakes. And Jain, sitting on four not out overnight, still has his bowling to come. Thirty-three years old and finally out there. Might as well make it count.
