Colombo: The other day, Team India captain Anil Kumble insisted that he had the bowlers who could take “20 wickets” in a match.

The reality after one heavily truncated day and an extended one in the Test series for the Idea Cup is that the Indians haven’t even got five Sri Lankan wickets!

Kumble has himself not opened account.

A good starting point at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC), therefore, would be to get the fifth wicket and to then quickly close the home team’s first innings.

Four dropped catches didn’t help, nor even two referrals to TV umpire Rudi Koertzen. In fact, when a Sri Lankan — Tillekeratne Dilshan — took the referral route, he actually benefited.

As it turned out, Mark Benson featured in all three referrals. He was right twice, but got exposed once.

Clearly, the visitors would like to forget Day II of the first of three Tests.

Just like the Sri Lankans would remember it for many moons, largely because of three hundreds.

Mahela Jayawardene did a Bradman by scoring his ninth hundred (136) at one ground. There were hundreds both before (115 from opener Malinda Warnapura) and after (an unbeaten 111 from Thilan Samaraweera) the captain’s superb effort.

At stumps, the hosts were a massive 422 for four.

The SSC wicket is playing true and unless the Indians get wickets early on the third morning, Muttiah Muralidharan and Ajantha Mendis could become more menacing than they normally would be.

The Sri Lankans didn’t lose a wicket before lunch, adding 120. They lost one in each of the last two sessions, but at least 100 was scored in each one of them.

“It’s not a great feeling... Catches being missed is part of the game... The wicket here is very flat,” maintained Ishant Sharma, who didn’t exactly get into the debate over whether a fifth specialist bowler could have made a difference.

Ishant accepted that the line and length had to be consistently good. As for the wicket, flat or not, one still has to use its benign nature to advantage.

“It’s a very friendly venue for me... The SSC wicket is good for batting... It’s all about application... Once you’re settled you can graft,” remarked Mahela, who didn’t miss the announcement about matching Sir Don.

Pity so few were there to applaud in person.

Mahela added: “I was lucky with catches being dropped (both times by Dinesh Karthik)... Looking ahead, we’ll be making sure we have enough runs on the board... It’s important to get ahead in the first 2-3 days...”

Warnapura, who drove beautifully and exhibited an excellent temperament, thanked his captain for all the encouragement. “There couldn’t have been somebody better at the other end.”

Later, talking to The Telegraph, Bandula Warnapura’s nephew said: “I’m not a natural opener... I’ve batted in the middle-order for Sri Lanka A and my club... It’s by chance that I’ve been opening for the senior team...”

He’s a Brian Lara devotee.

The day’s third hundred-getter, Samaraweera, confessed that having been out of the picture for a couple of years had made him “hungry” and “determined.”

Having taken a few knocks, he’s now into giving hard knocks to the opposition.

Actually, Samaraweera reached his hundred almost unnoticed. That he took no more than 174 deliveries is pretty good considering he was once regarded as somebody who would stonewall.

“I’ve made some technical adjustments,” Samaraweera (who got a hundred on debut, against India, in 2001-02) pointed out. The bottomline is that it’s working.

Footnote: It’s unusual that some of our worst bowling and fielding performances have been coming in an era when we’ve got a specialist bowling and a specialist fielding coach — Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh, respectively.

THE REFERRALS

Thursday, Day II of the first Test at the SSC, saw the just-introduced referrals coming into the game. There were, in fact, as many as 3 referrals. The referrals were:

India challenged an lbw decision by Mark Benson (45.4 ovs), off Harbhajan Singh’s bowling, which went in favour of Malinda Warnapura. Third umpire Rudi Koertzen reviewed the decision, and Warnapura was given not out.

Tillekeratne Dilshan was given out caught behind off Zaheer Khan by Benson (105.3 ovs). The batsman asked for the decision to be reviewed. Dilshan was ruled not out, the first batsman to successfully appeal for a decision.

India appealed for another lbw decision to be reviewed when Dilshan was given not out (119.1 ovs) by Benson off Harbhajan. Koertzen turned it down.

Note: At the end of the day, Benson got it right twice and wrong once.