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Sri Lanka first met India in a Test match some 35 years ago. during the autumn of 1982. The venue was Madras, or Chennai as it is known now.
The match ended in a draw, but it was by no means a boring affair. While the lack of penetration was evident in the bowling of both the attacks; the batting from both the teams was exciting and attractive.
The run rate per over was around 4 throughout the match; this was something very unusual at the time; especially in Test matches in India where the pitches tended to be low and slow.
Also, there was an exciting finish – India dominated throughout but couldn’t enforce a victory. Quite remarkably, for a brief period in the final evening, an unexpected victory for Sri Lanka looked a possibility.
The match started on the 17th of September. Bandula Warnapura, the Lankan captain, won the toss, decided to bat first, and within the first half an hour was regretting his decision.
Both the Lankan openers- the skipper himself and WK Mahesh Goonatillake, a makeshift opener – perished cheaply, leaving the tourists at 11/2.
Fortunately, their departure saw the two best stroke-makers of the team; Roy Dias and Duleep Mendis come together at the wicket. They bought their team back in the match with a fine third wicket stand of 153.
Initially, with the ball moving a bit, they took the cautious approach. But after that they engaged themselves in free stroke making. Their techniques were quite different. Roy Dias was without doubt the most technically sound Lankan batsman of his era. Stylish and elegant, he belonged to the Sir Frank Worrell school of batting. Mendis was more unorthodox, always ready to take some risks.
On this autumn day, these two batted brilliantly to wrest the initiative from India. Dias fell in the mid-afternoon, after a well made 60. But there was no stopping Mendis – he scored 105, his first Test hundred.
Dilip Doshi dismissed both the men; and thanks mainly to him, India at one stage restricted Sri Lanka to 204/6. But, the Lankan tail wagged, and they reached 346 all out early in the second morning.
After Dias and Mendis no one else managed to dazzle, but there were useful contributions by the lower order.
Doshi the left arm spinner finished with the highly impressive figures of 5/85, and Kapil Dev cleaned up the tail to finish with 3/70.
In reply India batted for two days to reach 566/6 declared. They were put on course by an opening stand of 156 by the veteran Sunil Gavaskar and debutant Arun Lal.
Gavaskar scored 155 batting in his usual style. Later, Sandip Patil scored a much quicker ton, 114* to set up the declaration.
Sri Lankan bowling at the time depended very heavily the two De Silvas, no relations between them. Somchandra was a leg spinner, while Ajit De Silva was an orthodox left arm spinner. But, in the flat track of Madras, they failed to make any impression.
Sri Lanka started their second innings under enormous pressure, and their predicament became worse as the openers failed again.
In a desperate bid all rounder Ravi Ratnayeke, who bowled right arm medium pace but batted left handed, was pushed to the opening slot alongside the skipper.
It didn’t work – both the openers failed to reach double figures.
For skipper Warnapura this would be the end of a disappointing Test career. A prolific scorer for the Lankans in their pre-Test match days, he failed to show his best in the Test arena.
He totaled only 96 runs in eight innings in Test cricket. Somewhat dejected, he led a rebel Sri Lanka team to a tour of SA in 1982-83 and got banned. In recent times, his nephew Malinda Warnapura enjoyed a spell with the Sri Lankan national team.
Back to Madras 1982, yet again there was a century stand for the third wicket – but this time it was almost entirely dominated by Roy Dias.
The Indian seamer, Kapil and Madan Lal were treated with little respect by him. The spinners, Doshi and debutant Rakesh Shukla, also failed to make any impact.
From the Lankans’ point of view; runs were important. Merely playing out time wouldn’t be enough. Fully aware of this, Dias counter attacked in a most glorious manner.
The only regret was that he missed his ton by only three runs. His innings of 97 ended when Gavaskar caught him of Rakesh Shukla, giving the Delhi leg spinner his first Test wicket.
Even the Indian supporters felt sorry for Dias.
After Dias’ departure, Mendis took over and completed another fine hundred. He again scored 105, becoming the first Lankan batsman to score centuries in each innings of a Test match.
In the meantime, Doshi had picked up couple of wickets, and then Shukla bowled Mendis to leave the Lankans at 291/6.
The lead at the time was small, and it looked like India would win easily despite the brilliance of Mendis and Dias. Sri Lanka needed more heroics, and they found their hero in the form of Anura Ranasinghe.
A right-hand batsman and a useful left arm seamer, Ranasinghe was a ODI specialist at a time when the 50-over game was just becoming popular in the sub continent.
This was his second test after he had a forgettable debut against Pakistan at Faisalabad earlier this year.
A duck here in the first innings compounded the pressure in him. Yet, he overcame the pressure to score a classy 77 in the second innings.
First he shared a sixth wicket stand of 89 with Mendis. After Mendis’ departure he became the senior batsman at the wicket.
He continued on with his stroke play and added another valuable 49 runs for the seventh wicket with Somchandra De Silva.
Many Lankan pundits at the time saw in Ranasinghe a talented all rounder who would serve the country for years to come.
Sadly, Madras would be his last Test. He, along with Ajit De Silva and WK Mahesh Goonatillake, would be part of Warnapura’s rebel team to South Africa. They all were banned from cricket.
Although the team was rebuilt with Mendis as captain, Ranasinghe certainly was a big loss for Sri Lanka cricket. Even a bigger loss came in November 1998, when he passed away peacefully during his sleep at home.
At Madras, the Lankans eventually reached 394 all out setting a target of 175 to the home side. For India, Kapil bowled intelligently to take five wickets, but the spinners Doshi and Shukla disappointed.
Here, Doshi took 3 wickets, but they were expensive, coming for 147 runs. Three years earlier, he had taken over from Bishen Bedi as India’s premier left arm spinner; but while he had nagging accuracy just like Bedi, he lacked any subtle variation of flight. He was basically a defensive type bowler who waited for the batsmen to make mistakes.
At Madras, he took eight wickets in the match, but failed to show enough killer instincts. As for Shukla, he dismissed Dias and Mendis in the second innings; his only wickets in Test cricket.
He was already past 34 and after failing to impress here, he wouldn’t get a second chance. Young Laxman Shivaramakrishnan would come in to the team later in the season.
Both Shiva and Narendra Hirwani, later in the decade, would give Indian fans false hopes about their potential to become the new Chandrasekhar. Finally, the arrival of Anil Kumble in 1990 would solve the problem.
The most exciting part of the Madras Test started in the final afternoon. Although time was against them, India felt confident of chasing 175.
They changed their batting line up, opening with Arun Lal and Vengsarkar. They both fell cheaply, but a quick-fire 62 run 3rd wicket stand between Sandip Patil and Kapil Dev briefly revived India’s hope.
The hopes ended with Kapil getting out for 30. Patil was run out for 46, and when ever-reliable Vishwanath fell cheaply, India suddenly found themselves struggling at 94/5.
Suddenly Sri Lanka saw their chances in the match with medium pacer Asantha De Mel bowling the spell of his life.
India eventually finished at 135/7 with Ashantha De Mel taking 5/68. Skipper Gavaskar, who had no plans to bat in the second innings, eventually came at No.9 and along with Yashpal Sharma took India to safety.
So the honor was shared in this historical Test match. But definitely, Sri Lanka was the happier of the two teams.
The batting of Mendis and Dias plus the hostile bowling by De Mel in the final evening gave them confidence about their Test future.
The Madras test was the highlight of their short tour to India. And although they lost the ODI series 3-0, despite couple of classy hundreds from Roy Dias, they went home satisfied about their overall team performance during the tour.
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