Former batter Cheteshwar Pujara said that while he understands why India enforced the follow-on vs Sri Lanka in the second Test in Colombo, the Shubman Gill-led side might have had more of a chance of winning the match if they hadn’t done so.

After scoring 503/9 ion the first innings, India declared and put Sri Lanka in to bat. They then skittled out the hosts for 290 and sent them to bat again, enforcing a follow-on. However, this time, Sri Lanka, with the heroics of Sonal Dinusha, who scored centuries in each innings, managed to hold on as the hosts survived and walked away with a draw.

“I genuinely feel that if India hadn’t enforced the follow-on, they had a better chance of winning this game. Because if you look at this bowling line-up, when you have bowled 90 overs in Sri Lankan conditions, which is very hot and humid, you dehydrate a lot, there is very less time for a player to recover. And then when you get onto the field for another, say, 80-90 overs, and you have that pressure of picking up 10 wickets. I know there was plenty of time left in the game, but there is pressure. Because you are bowling on a pitch which is still good to bat on. And that’s why I felt that India shouldn’t have enforced the follow-on and should have batted for at least 30-40 overs,” Pujara said to Cricinfo.

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“It’s easier to say now because I am sure the Indian team management and the captain would have also had an eye on how the weather was. And the weather wasn’t looking good. And that’s the reason I think they might have thought that we may not get enough number of overs in the next couple of days. And let’s try and put Sri Lanka in and then try and win the game as early as possible. But I still feel if there wasn’t any weather around, it was pretty straightforward. Try and bat, keep Sri Lankan batters on the field for some time. Try and bowl for a session on day four. And then use the conditions on day five where it’s never easy to bat. So yeah, I thought it was slightly tough to criticize because yes, I can understand that there was weather around. But in a normal scenario, I would say that don’t enforce the follow-on,” he added.

The series ended 1-0 in favour of India due to their victory in the 1st Test at Galle but the draw in Colombo led to them dropping points and they stayed stuck in 5th in the World Test Championships points table.