Different paths to success

They began their careers within months of each other in the new millennium, but the roads they had traversed to get to the Adelaide Oval more than seven years on were radically different. Kumar Sangakkara made his Test debut a fortnight after a superb 85 against South Africa in his second one-day game, while Yuvraj Singh had to wait three years for his Test cap after announcing his arrival with a magnificent innings against Steve Waugh's side at the ICC Knockout.

Both are elegant left-handers capable of playing pretty much every stroke in the manual, and then improvising a few others. Both have been touted as captaincy material, but while Sangakkara appears destined to play out his career as Mahela Jayawardene's deputy, Yuvraj's inability to adapt to both forms of the game may just have cost him his chance.

Sangakkara is one of the great Test batsmen of the age, and confirmation of that came in Hobart last December, when an audacious and stroke-filled 192 transformed an Australian procession into a genuine contest. He has yet to embrace greatness in the one-day arena though, with seven centuries a poor return for a man who bats in the top four.

At the Kensington Oval last April, Sangakkara played an innings that has encapsulated his one-day batting. Needing to score at breakneck pace to win a World Cup final dominated by Adam Gilchrist's dazzling strokeplay, he and Sanath Jayasuriya careered along at more than a run a ball in a thrilling 116-run partnership before Sangakkara slapped Brad Hogg straight to midwicket. Had the partnership gone on another five overs, the denouement may not have been such a farce.

Relieved of wicketkeeping duties in the Test arena, his Test match batting has progressed to another level, one that Yuvraj can't even dream of after his travails in Australia. But in the one-day arena where he also dons the big gloves, Sangakkara and Yuvraj have remarkably similar numbers. Sangakkara has scored 6277 runs, 591 more than Yuvraj, but in 14 more innings. Yuvraj has one more hundred, with the best of them having come in Sydney on India's last tour.

Sangakkara's 128 was an object lesson in resurrecting an innings. It helped of course that he could bat alongside his great mate, Jayawardene. Like Ganguly-Tendulkar and Gilchrist-Hayden, this is a partnership with an instinctive awareness of who should charge and who should hold. At times this morning, it was Sangakkara who tried to set the tone, with some glorious drives square of the wicket. At other times, it was Jayawardene, working the ball behind square with deft twirls of the wrist.

It took them just over 35 overs to add 153, but the run-rate was almost immaterial given Sri Lanka's inability to last the distance in their previous games. Once again though, they were let down by a callow middle order. India won because there were crucial contributions at vital times from the likes of Rohit Sharma and Irfan Pathan. Sri Lanka remain excessively dependent on the big three.

The innings of the match though came from Yuvraj. There had been signs of a mini-revival in the last game against Australia, but after that 139 in Sydney four years ago, he had gone eight innings on Australian soil without a 50. At the Adelaide Oval, on a sluggish pitch where others struggled for a semblance of fluency, he breezed along to 76 from 70 balls before Chaminda Vaas outsmarted him with a canny yorker.

	At the Adelaide Oval, on a sluggish pitch where others struggled for a semblance of fluency, Yuvraj Singh breezed along to 76 from 70 balls © Getty Images

It ensured that the required rate ceased to be a factor and India cruised till a rush of blood from Pathan provoked the late wobble. Fortunately for them, a typically gritty 50 from Dhoni made certain that there would be no lapse back into the old habit of snaffling defeat from between the incisors of victory.

You can always tell when Yuvraj is in the mood, because those languid flicks through midwicket and square leg start racing to the rope. That was how it was in the early part of his innings today, and when he followed up with a couple of sublime drives through the covers, you knew Sri Lanka were in trouble.

If India do go on to make the final, Yuvraj will get four more chances to redeem what has been a singularly forgetful Australian adventure. Having arrived here hyped as the future of Indian batsmanship, he had endured the sort of torment that laid Rahul Dravid low in 1999-2000. If he can show some more of the character that he showed today, this season in hell may yet be the making of him.