Yes, India's ruthlessness was admirable but let's be thankful that this series is over

As compared to those first two matches in Galle and Colombo, there was something different about this third Test on days one and two. You could finally hear that iconic Papare music flowing for the first time in this series as Saturday and Sunday rolled by. On Monday, they were gone again though, as Sri Lanka crashed to an innings defeat. Match wrapped up in less than three days.

“Worst series ever,” said skipper Dinesh Chandimal in the post-match press conference.

There was no need to listen to anything else he said – injuries, lack of runs, bowlers’ inexperience, unsupportive pitches, losing three tosses in a row, et al. This was all noise, when faced with the simple fact that this has been a thoroughly spineless performance on the field. You can cross out synonyms too – spiritless, timid, gutless, dejected, downcast, hapless, listless.

We might need a new dictionary.

Test cricket isn’t simply a jousting battle between two sides on equal footing. It is glorious, or at least anticipated to be, because batsmen and bowlers will themselves into overcoming odds beyond their control, whether in terms of opposition’s superiority or conditions. They push themselves into a zone that they didn’t believe existed in their mental space, across a physical threshold they didn’t think was possible, into a new persona that aids their progress both as a player and as an individual.

Watching this Sri Lankan side struggle through these three Tests, however, has been an excruciating experience. Like we have been lied to, as if all those celebrated moments across different eras have simply been dreamt up. Going by the evidence at hand, Test cricket is drab, and it should die a slow death, if not mercifully killed off.

Maybe, just maybe, someone, somewhere, will light Test cricket’s fire again, one can only hope.

Utter domination

In all those years that he set the track ablaze, it makes for wonderment what precisely did Usain Bolt tell himself? It couldn’t have been simply a matter of turning up on the field, no. That is not how champions operate. They progress, in every way deemed plausible, by raising their own standard. By competing against themselves – there are no silver medals in this race.

This Indian team was made to look like Bolt in his prime by Sri Lanka. A well-oiled machine, simply turning up and challengers rolling over – there was no competition, no race, and the gold medals were handed out aplenty.

It begs the question, what team India thinks of itself, in terms of competition and indeed progression, when faced with an opponent that can’t stand upright even if supported by a thousand pillars?

In Bolt’s case, perhaps it was easier to elevate his personal goals and ambitions, race against himself, because in that magnificent universe, it was only ever about an individual.

How does a team do it, in a different environment altogether, in a sport wherein effort on the field is a sum of eleven individual parts? On umpteen occasions, Virat Kohli has spoken about doing the ‘process’ right – starting to sound like MS Dhoni in many ways.

But the difference lies in how he highlights the point further.

For this Indian team, it is about concentrating on doing their part alone. For example, if the batsmen identify a certain pattern of run-scoring, they will follow it to the tee. If the bowlers identify a certain mode of attack, then they have to follow it up without worrying. It doesn’t matter if they are facing Australia or Bangladesh or an invisible Lankan side.

Redefining targets

Take the particular case of Mohammed Shami, for example. He was sublime with the new and old ball, through the first and second innings, almost making it seem that he was bowling on a green, fast track in England or South Africa and not on a dusty, flat surface in the Lankan wilderness. How do you measure his progress as a bowler?

It is in constantly revising your targets on the field of play that you find the answer. That is, and can be, the only measure of your own performance when faced with such an insipid opposition.

“In the last game we enforced the follow-on but didn’t execute things to the best of our abilities. This morning we spoke about treating this as day five of an away tour, probably a series defining Test where we will have to get the opposition out within 60-70 overs. So take that attitude on the field, try to wrap up things and understand how that can be done because we will not always have 500-600 runs’ cushion. We took this as an opportunity to learn as a group together,” said Kohli in the post-match conference.

This drive to improvise, this self-competition, as a unit, is India’s singular long-lasting gain from this Test tour.

Apart from that, we should all be thankful that this series is over.