Action-man Kohli squeezes Sri Lanka's fight

Cricket matches, it is widely believed, can turn towards teams on individual pieces of outstanding skill, slices of magic and freak happenstance. India's turnaround moment on day three of the P Sara Test is a little difficult to put a finger on.

Was the fall of the last seven Sri Lanka wickets for 65 set about with the end of the Angelo Mathews-Lahiru Thirimanne partnership in the 85th over? With Ishant Sharma's He Man and the Master of the Universe Snarl? Or the welcome Galle marauder Dinesh Chandimal received, with a first-ball clatter onto his helmet?

Was it captain Mathews' dismissal at the hands of Stuart Binny? Mathews averages 71.39 as captain and such are his powers that it is rumoured he could peel off a 100-run partnership with a grandfather at the other end (using a bat of course not a stick of rhubarb).

Or should you dial back from that dismissal to the point where captain Virat Kohli went off the field for five balls in the middle of the day? Thus calming everyone else down for a few moments.

The discussion will not bother Kohli - he will be pleased that India are 157 ahead at the end of day three, with nine wickets to go and the Test match to control. In the never-ending public PhD dissertation that is Test captaincy, Kohli would have been happy to get through a draining, bruising day with something to show for it: finishing somewhere, it can be argued, between a B and a B+.

Kohli's key starting point was to block off the oxygen of runs: it began bafflingly with Binny opening the bowling from one end, and lasted all but one over - in which Mathews clouted him for two fours. Quickly, order was restored when Umesh Yadav, more sting and bigger bite, was brought on.

It was a session where impatience would have threatened to gnaw at discipline: in 28 overs of tight attack, with three boundary riders and the rest in the ring, Mathews and Thirimanne proved themselves handsome adversaries. Their batting was high-percentage efficiency, minus risk. The first hour went by maiden-less, Mathews and Thirimanne scoring 41. The second produced only two, one from Amit Mishra with a leg-bye and one from Binny just before lunch.

As captain, in the body-language department, Kohli falls somewhere in between Sourav Ganguly's let-the-feelings-show and MS Dhoni's detached cool. He is though a jaw-clencher and a frown-er, behind his sunglasses and blue India cap, distinctive in the colour at the side of his shoes in some metrosexual shade between fuschia and flame, with taped-up elbows.

Kohli's captaincy manner is all action-man; talking to his bowlers before overs, some during, often even after, moving his boundary fielders a few yards this way or that before the bowler begins his run-up. At one point during the Galle Test, Kohli would have turned up in at least three, if not five different positions during the course of an hour. Here in Colombo there was more stability: mid-off at most times, short mid-off when he had to get under a batsman's helmet and at leg slip to the spinner.

The arrival of the new ball ratcheted up the action: it was given to Yadav just before lunch, and he conceded seven. When one on the pads was whipped dismissively by Mathews to the midwicket boundary, Kohli was furious, glowering.

When Ishant was given the new ball after the break, the field was packed on the leg side promising a fierce and fiery barrage of bouncers from round the wicket: Mathews merely produced three contemptuous boundaries, Ishant bowled like a man who had just walked out to the field after a bad lunch, Kohli covered his face and didn't look at his bowler. The field returned to realistic ambition, packed on the off side, captain and bowler talking again.

Thirimanne had not been able to work Ishant away as effortlessly as Mathews, the fast bowler's length and angle nibbling away at the left-hander's composure but unable to induce the nick. His second over with the new ball sent Thirimanne back. The decision was contentious, but the Indians were not complaining.

When Dinesh Chandimal arrived, Ishant greeted him with a bouncer on the helmet; after a single over by Ashwin from the other end, Kohli ensured all that Chandimal faced was seam. He was gone with the 12th ball Ishant bowled to him.

Kohli went to get a bruised finger attended to for five minutes. Mathews reverse-swept Ashwin to get to his century and Binny got him pushing one to first slip.

Kohli returned to the field as if he had swallowed a truckload of energy bars. The second session had produced 22 overs and 74 for 4, and the final push was even quicker: Five overs. 8 for 3. Without their captain, Sri Lanka were fed to Mishra's leg spin and fell apart.

Mishra, who cleaned up three of the seven wickets to fall today, said Ishant's "effort in the heat" and his spell with the new ball on a slow wicket after lunch helped set up the game and the dismissals that followed for India. Mishra was asked at stumps if India were frustrated by the happenings of the first session.

"Not at all. Our plan was that even if we didn't get wickets, we shouldn't concede too many runs," Mishra said. "And to bowl one line to create pressure. We knew that if we got one or two, we could run through them and that's what happened. As soon as we got one or two, because we had not conceded a lot of runs, the pressure was on the opposition."

When Sri Lanka were dismissed, 22 minutes after tea, captain Kohli shook hands with every one of his players, with a special pat on the back for Binny. India and its captain had had an all-round good day.