AHMEDABAD (India), Dec 16: A distracted India will look for inspiration from Anil Kumble’s 100th Test to seal a series victory against Sri Lanka in the third and final match starting on Sunday.

The hosts lead 1-0 after leg spinner Kumble captured 10 wickets to help achieve an emphatic 188-run victory in the second test in Delhi. The rain-marred opening game ended in a draw.

The 35-year-old bowler, India’s chief match-winner at home for over a decade, will become only the fifth Indian to play in 100 tests when he turns out at the Motera stadium.

Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and Dilip Vengsarkar are the other Indians to have played over 100 Tests.

However, cricket-mad India has been engulfed by the huge row surrounding the abrupt removal of former captain Saurav Ganguly for the Ahmedabad test.

Ganguly, 33, was dropped by the national selectors to groom younger batsmen such as Yuvraj Singh. He was sacked as captain and as a one-day player in October due to his prolonged batting slump and a spat with coach Greg Chappell.

The national media has slammed the way in which he was axed, with politicians and fans from Ganguly’s sports-crazy West Bengal state insisting the nation’s most successful test captain deserved a better farewell.

The hosts still look set to dash a demoralised Sri Lanka’s hopes for a maiden test victory on their sixth tour of India.

Sri Lanka’s main worry will be batting, which let them down on a firm Ferozeshah Kotla pitch despite off spinner Muttiah Muralitharan’s seven-wicket haul in the first innings.

Although Muralitharan, the second highest wicket-taker in test history, suffered a thigh strain in Delhi and batted with a runner in the second innings, captain Marvan Atapattu has said it was nothing serious.

Only Atapattu and Mahela Jayawardene have been consistent in the batting line-up which repeatedly collapsed during their 6-1 one-day series thrashing in India last month.

Atapattu made 88 and 67 in Delhi with the classy Jayawardene crossing fifty in all three innings so far.

Opening batsman Avishka Gunawardene could be axed after scoring 4, 25 and 9, dismissed each time by seamer Irfan Pathan after failing to move his feet and trying to play too many shots.

That could mean a test debut for fellow left-hander Upul Tharanga, a talented 20-year-old batsman who has played 10 one-dayers.

Explosive opening batsman Virender Sehwag will return for India after missing the Delhi Test due to illness, although he could have a new opening partner in Wasim Jaffer.

Mumbai batsman Jaffer was recalled after three years on account of his good form in domestic tournaments. He is likely to replace Gautam Gambhir, who totalled five runs in three innings.

Jaffer, 27, who played the last of his seven Tests against England in Trent Bridge in 2002, was chosen to boost the opening slot before next month’s tough Test tour of Pakistan.

The Ahmedabad pitch could favour batsmen with the last three tests ending in draws.—Reuters