COLOMBO, Aug 11: It was Saurav Ganguly versus Sri Lanka. While the Bengali, nicknamed Maharaja, stomped around the Singhalese Sports Club (SSC) Ground like a prince, his colleagues were reduced to paupers in search of runs.

Ganguly's innings stood out like a bright spot in a blank canvas on the third day of the second and final Test.

The Indian innings meandered at a pedestrian pace and but for the brilliance of Ganguly, the visitors may well have been struggling for survival in the Test. He scored 100 of the 149 added by India and 43 of the 47 last of the recognised batsmen, Nayan Mongia, was dismissed.

India scored 71 in 23 overs in the pre-lunch session and 50 in 31 overs in the next session. They hit 13 fours and one six in the first 4 hours of play, which meant that the rest of 63 runs in that period took them a staggering 310 balls, or 51.4 overs !

Skipper Sachin Tendulkar admitted that his side batted a bit slow, but he attributed the slow run-rate to the defensive measures adopted by the Sri Lankans. ``The field was set very deep,'' he said. ``Our intention was to get a total of 432, which would have meant a lead of 100,'' he added.

The eventual lead of 43 runs was wiped out by the 11th over by the Lankan openers, but India tasted one success by the close of play, which ended 5.4 overs short of the scheduled 90 overs.

The man to make exit was Maravan Atapattu after scoring his highest in Tests 29, in a career spanning 17 Tests and seven years. Atapattu continues to be an enigma in Tests. He began his career by scoring one run in six innings after looking so good in the One-Day Internationals.

Atapattu opened the face of the bat to guide Anil Kumble to third-man, but was beaten by the bounce to find Azharuddin acting as an obstacle in the slip.

It was another sad end to a promising innings, which began with two lovely hits through the covers off Debashis Mohanty. The Orissa lad, who took four wickets in the first innings, was given the new ball ahead of Venkatesh Prasad and Abey Kuruvilla. ``The move was basically to inject an element of surprise. It was a gamble in the sense that Jayasuriya would have mentally come out to face Prasad,'' skipper Tendulkar explained his move later.

In the morning, Tendulkar did not look his authoritative self. He survived two vociferous shouts for lbw against Vaas and Sajeewa de Silva, who were given the new ball straight away by the deputising skipper Aravinda de Silva. Ranatunga was still nursing his injured thumb in the pavilion.

Tendulkar was later beaten outside the off-stump by Sajeewa before he hit his first boundary of the morning a hook off the same bowler in the 11th over of the day. Tendulkar then flicked Ravindra Pushpakumara for four before the paceman got poetic justice, by having him caught on the drive by Muttiah Muralitharan at short cover. It was Pushpakumara who suffered yesterday when Ranatunga dropped Tendulkar when he was just 34.

With the early exit of Tendulkar and a long tail behind him, much depended on the kind of meaningful support Nayan Mongia could give to Ganguly. While securing the lead was of paramount importance, Mongia could have stepped up the pace a bit more than playing close to two hours for his 15 runs.

But India found the man of the hour in Ganguly. The Bengal left-hander has been undergoing a trough after the tidal wave of success in England -- a tour in which he scored 131 on his Test debut at Lord's and followed it up with 136 in the next Test at Nottingham. But after scores of 66 and 21 not out in his third Test -- the one-off match Australia -- he has been able to score just 369 runs in his next 11 Tests at a poor average of 26.35.

``I was very, very keen to get my third hundred. It was playing on my mind and I know that several batsmen in Test history have collapsed after a good start to their career,'' Ganguly said. He said the conditions in England and the fact that he was playing in his first Test would make him place the Lord's knock his best. ``But this one today is also important. It came under pressure when we were 126-4 and with the ball doing a bit,'' he explained.

It was an innings of tremendous maturity for the manner in which he guided India to a first innings lead without a false stroke or needless panic. Some of the shots executed today would have done Tendulkar proud. The straight drive he unleashed to complete his century of Sajeewa and a similar stroke of Vaas were rare gems in his dazzling knock. It was only when he was running out of partners that he chose the aerial route, hoisting Murali twice over long-off for sixes.

Scoreboard

SRI LANKA (1st innings): 332
INDIA (1st innings; overnight 226-4)
Ajay Jadeja c Kaluwitharana b Vaas (21m, 17b) 1
Navjot Singh Sidhu st Kaluwitharana b Muralitharan (139m, 71b, 4x4) 29
Rahul Dravid c Vaas b de Silva (19m, 9b) 2
Sachin Tendulkar c Muralitharan b Pushpakumara (403m, 266b, 16x4) 139
Mohammed Azharuddin c Mahanama b Vaas (69m, 61b, 3x4) 22
Saurav Ganguly c Vaas b S de Silva (426m, 309b, 19x4, 2x6) 147
Nayan Mongia b Muralitharan (108m, 83b, 2x4) 15
Anil Kumble c Jayawardena b Muralitharan (15m, 7b) 0
Abey Kuruvilla c Jayawardena b Muralitharan (11m, 5b) 0
Venkatesh Prasad c Kaluwitharana b S de Silva (29m, 25b) 2
Debashis Mohanty not out (15m, 8b) 2
Extras: (b2, lb3, nb13) 18
Total: (all out in 141.1 overs; 656 minutes) 375
Fall of wickets: 1-2 (Jadeja), 2-9 (Dravid), 3-81 (Sidhu), 4-126 (Azhar); 5-276 (Tendulkar); 6-328 (Mongia); 7-334 (Kumble); 8-342 (Kuruvilla); 9-359 (Prasad)
Bowling: Vaas 27-5-69-2 (3nb), Pushpakumara 19-3-79-1 (2nb), S de Silva 31.1-6-101-3, Muralitharan 48-17-99-4 (8nb), Jayasuriya 10-6-15-0, Jayawardena 1-1-0-0, A de Silva 5-2-7-0
SRI LANKA (2nd innings)
Sanath Jayasuriya batting (109m, 61b, 4x4) 34
Maravan Atapattu c Azhar b Kumble (76m, 50b, 3x4) 29
Roshan Mahanama batting (32m, 27b, 2x4) 9
Extras: (lb1, w1, nb3) 5
Total: (for one wicket, in 22.2 overs; 109 minutes) 77
Fall of wicket: 1-65 (Atapattu)
Bowling: Mohanty 3.2-0-15-0, Prasad 4-0-18-0, Kuruvilla 8-3-23-0, Kumble 7-0-20-1.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.