Bowlers' hard work is paying off: Arun

Pleased with the performance of his wards, India’s bowling coach Bharat Arun felt the game is in the balance and said that a lead of 100 runs could prove very decisive. “There is a long way to go in this game,” said Arun at the post match press conference on Friday.

“But so far, we must be pretty happy. Our lower order has contributed quite well today and also we have kept them under check in terms of run rate. We are probably looking for a lead of about 100 runs. A 100-run lead could be decisive on this track which is beginning to wear.

“There were signs of spinners extracting some turn. This track is a lot harder than what we had in Galle. So there will be much more bounce and maybe not as much turn,” he said. One pleasing thing about the Indians was the discipline they showed for most parts of the day. Pacers Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav, making his appearance in place of Varun Aaron, bowled a tight and probing line to keep the Lankan batsmen on their toes. Even when wickets were not coming their way for all the hard work, they never wavered, a welcome sight as compared to the series against Australia last December-January when they kept spraying the ball all over the place.

Arun said the work put in at the nets was paying off. “To be doing well in Test matches, you need to be bowling with a lot of discipline. This is something that we have worked really hard on. Today was there for it to see. Restricting them to under three an over, it was pretty good bowling.

“I guess discipline is more about ironing out your difficulties and also more in the mind. The calmer you are and if you have clarity of mind, then you have the best chance to perform,” he added.

Arun said the reason behind picking Yadav for this game was because of his ability to reverse swing.

“If you look at this wicket, it does not have that much pace to offer. There was dry grass and also the fact that the ball could reverse on this track and Umesh is pretty good with reverse swing, that’s why we went for Umesh over Varun.

“There has to be variety in the attack and each one has to have his own strengths which we need to really work on. It’s just like horses for courses. Whoever is pretty good for the kind of track, it gives you that much more of freedom to choose the best bowling attack that you would want,” added the Indian bowling coach.