Sreesanth five-for knocks out Sri Lanka

Indian cricket's prodigal son Sreesanth returned in style with a five-for to destroy the back of Sri Lanka's batting and give India their biggest ever lead against Sri Lanka on the third day of the second Test in Kanpur. For nine successive overs in the first session, and for seven on the trot in the second, Sreesanth ran in hard, hit the deck and found life in a slow pitch.

Green Park was where Sreesanth played his last Test 19 months ago before he disappeared from the sports pages and became an occasional feature on Page 3. Today, he stormed back, lifting India with spells that read 9-2-28-3 in the first session and 7-2-18-2 in the second.

Sreesanth was clearly the star today. His bowling was sublime through the day but the highlight was the delivery that gave him his fifth wicket, a peach that cut in from the middle stump line to take out the off stump of the clueless Rangana Herath. He also got the big breakthrough of the second session when he terminated the fighting partnership between the two Jayawardenes. Sreesanth probed Prasanna with 11 testing deliveries that included leg cutters, inswingers and a lovely inswinging yorker but Prasanna stood firm. However, Prasanna chased the 12th delivery, a short and wide one, and got a thin nick through to the keeper.

Instead of playing as close to the body as possible on a pitch with variable bounce, the batsmen erred by playing away. Tharanga Paranavitana was set up by a bouncer that crashed into his shoulder before he pushed at one cutting away from him. Kumar Sangakkara fell in the first over he faced off Sreesanth. Sangakkara played out three straight deliveries but was lured into a cover drive by a full wide one and ended up dragging it on to his stumps. Thilan Samaraweera was the next to go, pushing hard and early at a length delivery cutting away from him.