India vs Sri Lanka 2017, 1st Test, Day 2: 5 things we learnt from the day

#2 Lanka baffles with bizarre tactic

Karunaratne has been pretty good with the bat but giving him the ball is surely a tad too much

If Dimuth Karunaratne was given the new ball during the warm-up game against the Board President XI, it was because Sri Lanka thought his dibbly-dobbly seamers would come handy if the wickets seamed a bit. With the Eden offering a pretty responsive track, Sri Lanka decided to gamble.

They had India on the mat at 55/5 when Dinesh Chandimal pulled out his wild card and gave Karunaratne the ball. The first ball was a short, nothing delivery that Pujara put away for a boundary. He continued to land it short under overcast skies and Pujara collected two more boundaries in his two overs which went for 17. The visitors should really have stuck to their three seamers in these conditions.