Prasad's spell and zest add spark to frustrating Test

By his fourth over of the morning, Dhammika Prasad had had enough. This pitch at his home ground had turned up green on match day, so as far as he was concerned, this was his party. The India top order were not taking his hint that he wanted them to leave.

All innings long he had zipped balls past both edges, struck front and back pads, and generally had batsmen poking, lunging and spasming at the crease. In his second over of the day he beat Virat Kohli's bat for what must have seemed to him like the zillionth time in the innings. He shot the batsman a pleading look. "Please just get your edge to one and go away." Two overs later, when Cheteshwar Pujara failed to edge another one, Prasad got angry. He leaned in in his follow through to spit some words at the batsman, then snapped at Kohli when the non-striker returned his fire.

His mood had not been helped by the umpire's refusal to give Kohli out third delivery. In the last Test, officials had asked a papare band at the P Sara Oval to stop playing, supposedly so they could hear edges better. There was no band at the SSC on Saturday, so there must have been a trumpet and drums playing somewhere in the greater Colombo region, because the umpire failed to conclude that this ball was headed for the stumps. Prasad stared him down with a cartoon character's bulging eyeballs. Only the steam pouring out of his ears was missing. Later in the over another lbw shout was turned down, irking the bowler, and putting him on track for that sharp mid-pitch exchange.

"At the time, I had had two close lbw appeals against Kohli," Prasad said of his brief chat to the batsmen. "I was a little frustrated because I didn't get them. Also, Kohli and Pujara were getting beaten a lot by the balls I was sending down. I was desperate for a wicket, so with that frustration, I did anything I could do to try and get that wicket."

Then, having charged to the crease like a bull elephant for four wicked but wicketless overs, Prasad watched from the outfield as Angelo Mathews ambled in and had Kohli caught behind off a floating flower petal of a delivery. Prasad doesn't have 70 Test wickets yet, but on this pitch, he was having one of those mornings only the best quicks usually know about - a spell in which his deliveries whizzed off the surface like pinballs and batsmen could barely get close.

It was the final over of the session when Prasad finally got his first scalp of the day, Rohit Sharma nicking off to an away-seamer, then next ball, with the lunch break in between, he had Stuart Binny lbw with one that darted at the stumps.

But all through the day, Prasad's spells were roughly the same. Throughout an impressive hundred, Pujara played and missed. Other times, Prasad struck pad and broke into one of his comically ferocious appeals. In this series, and in the one before it, Prasad has been superbly watchable, always up to something, often with the ball, other times with his body language, and occasionally even after the matches have ended.

He had carried Muttiah Muralitharan and Mahela Jayawardene on his shoulders in their farewell Tests, so when Sangakkara's retirement came around, Prasad seemed desperate to collect the set. Another player had picked Sangakkara up after the P Sara presentation, but Prasad elbowed him out of the way. On Saturday, he was seen clutching at his legend-bearing shoulder in between overs, after having pulled a muscle there the previous day. Or so he says.

Sri Lanka's Test cricket needs Prasad, not just for his bowling, but for the flavour he brings to an otherwise inoffensive team, and so far, to a frustrating Test. On both days of the match, his heart-on-sleeve zest for his work was at odds with match officials' over-caution in refusing to resume the cricket after rains came. Toeing slightly damp patches of the ground during pitch inspections, the umpires had shot each other worried looks, like they had discovered quicksand that would swallow fielders whole.

Prasad has a shot at completing his second five-wicket haul, on day three. Some have remarked he deserves five scalps for the way he's bowled in the innings. In Prasad's own head, he will probably think the spell was worth twenty-five, which is why he will be great viewing again when he gets the ball in his hand.