In the fourth over of the day, Muttiah Muralitharan got one to dip on Virender Sehwag. For a change Sehwag ended up playing in front of his body and scooped it back to Murali, who took it after a juggling act. Having added nine to his overnight 284, Sehwag - the fourth man to be dismissed in the 290s - was given a standing ovation and the cricket came out of a trance. The ball started turning again, the bowlers bowled to a plan again, the scoring settled to a more human rate, and India moved - albeit slowly - towards a big first-innings lead. Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman scored fifties, but they and Rahul Dravid would feel they missed out on centuries.
When Sehwag got out he had put India 63 ahead. Dravid, after surviving an edge that the umpire missed, followed him, edging Chanaka Welegedara to the keeper having added 12 to his overnight 62. In between those wickets, though, Tendulkar played his shots, vertical-sweeping Murali twice just to the left of the keeper and pulling and driving against the turn for two other boundaries. By the time Dravid got out, Tendulkar had reached 22 off 26 but he slowed down after that, knowing he needed to make sure India batted just once.
The slowing down was also because Rangana Herath and Murali found some rhythm. Murali even bowled a maiden - his first in 75 overs from the second innings in Ahmedabad. He kept VVS Laxman quiet by bowling from round the stumps, with a strong leg-side field, and India scored 49 runs in 18 overs between Dravid's dismissal and lunch. In the last over before lunch, there was reason to cheer for Sri Lanka: the innings run-rate came below five.
Post lunch Tendulkar crossed 50 for the 97th time in Tests. Laxman opened up after a dry spell, taking 12 runs off one Welegedara over that included the Laxman drive from outside off to wide of mid-on. In the next over, though, Nuwan Kulasekara breached Tendulkar's defence with an offcutter.
Laxman continued punishing Welegedara and went from 27 in 64 balls to 50 in 79. But soon, looking for a big shot off Murali, he was done in by a doosra.
The story of the first two sessions, though, was Herath. Easily the pick of Sri Lankan bowlers, he had the batsmen guessing, mixing his offbreaks and straighter ones to good effect. The carrom ball stayed in the batsmen's minds too, but it seemed everyone - the umpires, his own keeper, his slip fielders - had conspired against Herath.
First he failed to convince the umpire of that edge off Dravid. Then he managed a close lbw shout against Tendulkar when the batsman was 35. The umpire thought it would have missed leg, Hawkeye said it would have just hit. Then he had Yuvraj Singh groping as if blindfolded. When Yuvraj finally stepped out and missed another arm ball, Prasanna Jayawardene, arguably the best keeper to spin, couldn't collect it. That miss cost them only 15 as Yuvraj sliced the same bowler to three-quarters mid-off. But that wasn't the end of Herath's rotten luck: two balls later he got MS Dhoni to edge one and Mahela and Dilshan - at slip and second slip - saw it go through that little gap.
Herath's misfortune was bad enough; that he got the odd delivery to turn and bounce was worse for Sri Lanka, who were 236 in arrears at tea.
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