Kanpur: Sri Lanka gave Virender Sehwag an inch, and he converted it into a mile. Mahela Jayawardene dropped a sitter off the fourth delivery of the very first over of the second Test, and the Delhi dasher made Kumar Sangakkara and his boys pay the price for their profligacy here Tuesday.

Magnificently complemented by Indian cricket’s new ‘Mr Consistent’ Gautam Gambhir (167), Sehwag carried out a brutal onslaught on the Lankan bowlers.

The mayhem ended in the 42nd over when Tillekaratne Dilshan caught him brilliantly at cover off Muttiah Muralidharan, after a 233-run opening stand.

Sehwag (131) had by then completed his 16th Test century, but Gambhir, who scored his eighth century, along with Rahul Dravid, ensured the Lankan bowlers’ humiliation was far from over. When Murali finally caught Gambhir off his own bowling, it was clear that the greenish tinge on the wicket has fooled everybody.

India reached 417 for two (highest score by any Indian team on a single day of a Test match) on a Green Park track, which now looks like a batting paradise.

Sangakkara’s decision to play a third spinner in Ajantha Mendis seems to have backfired as the wicket did not offer much turn on the first day.

If Mahendra Singh Dhoni was right in deciding to bat first, he was also right in pointing out to a scribe on the eve of the match that Sehwag doesn’t need anyone’s advice.

The swashbuckling opener got a ‘life’ when he flashed hard at angular delivery from left-arm pacer Chanaka Welegedara. Wicketkeeper Prasanna Jayawardene needlessly dived in front of Mahela, who was at first slip and would have got the ball straight into his palms.

The dropped chance made Sehwag patient for some time. He took 26 deliveries to gauge that the wicket was a slow paced one and the grass in it would hardly help the seamers.

The 27th delivery, off Angelo Mathews, was driven through the covers. It was followed by a short-arm pull that opened the floodgates. The next Mathews over saw Sehwag hit a couple of majestic bowler’s back drive, signalling the start of the party.

With Gambhir running cheeky singles and sending the loose deliveries to the fence with equal disdain, Sangakkara ran out of plans within the first hour itself.

The Lankan captain was so desperate that he introduced all the spinners between the 16th and 19th over. First, Rangana Herath in the 16th, then Mendis in the 18th, and finally Murali in the 19th.

There is a saying that pacers hunt in pairs. The Sehwag-Gambhir duo on Tuesday showed that even openers like hunting in pairs. They kept it simple. The game plan was to attack the Lankan spin trio and unsettle them. They executed it to perfection.

Herath went for 14 in his first over. When Murali came in, Gambhir hit an exquisite drive through extra cover which can be rated as one of the best shots of the day. With Mendis getting little purchase off the track, the inevitable happened.

Worst, he erred in length. When he pitched it short, Sehwag invariably hit him over deep mid-wicket (once for a huge six).

When he bowled full and wide outside the off-stump, Sehwag launched into the drive. He was so confident that he cleared the man stationed at long-on for a huge six. Mendis’ first spell (5-0-42-0) clearly showed that the Lankans lost the plot pretty early.

The defensive tactics of bowling to Sehwag with a deep point into the second hour of the match did not do any good to the team’s cause. He completed his century off just 97 deliveries.

If Sehwag’s innings was about bullying the bowlers, Gambhir’s inning was about being methodical. Apart from hitting 15 boundaries, he ran more than 100 runs in singles and twos.

His century came off 132 deliveries with 13 boundaries. This is his fourth consecutive century in as many Tests (Napier, Wellington, Ahmedabad, Kanpur) and his third 150-plus score.

The onus will now be on the quartet of Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth, Harbhajan Singh and Pragyan Ojha to take 20 wickets on yet another challenging track for bowlers.