COLOMBO: Forced to toil hard on a life-less track in the second Test, India spinner Pragyan Ojha on Tuesday said even the Sri Lankan bowlers will struggle to contain a strong Indian batting line up on such a pitch. Sri Lanka scored a massive 642 for four before declaring their first innings and Ojha expected same run feast for India, who were placed handsomely at 95 for no loss.

“The way things are going I don't think anything extraordinary will happen to the wicket because it is a rock solid wicket. I just think our guys will keep on batting.

“We have realised in the last two days that it is a very good wicket to bat on. If you don’t make any silly mistakes I think you can just bat on. And the way those guys have played it shows that if we apply ourselves we are going to get a good score here,” Ojha told reporters after day’s proceedings.

The second day of the match saw more than 400 runs being scored for the loss of just two wickets at the Sinhalese Sports Club wicket and Ojha was of the view that pitches that give an equal chance to both bowlers and batsmen should be prepared for Test cricket.

“I think I had come here in 2008. Same was the situation. It was more of a batsmen friendly wicket than bowlers. I feel personally, we should have a wicket where there is a competition between the bat and the bowl.

“There was not much turn for me and it was coming on to the bat with the new ball. With the old ball also it was not doing much,” he rued.

Talking about the good turn Virender Sehwag managed to extract, Ojha said, “Yes there was a rough patch on the wicket. They were getting some help as an off spinner.” The Hyderabadi spinner said that India’s fortune could have been different had they got a chance to bowl second.

“I think winning or losing the toss was not in our hands. I think we would have liked to bowl second. The amount of runs Sri Lankans got. If we had got the same amount of runs we would have bowled second. It would have been different,” he said.

Ojha also expected a good tussle against Lanka spinner Ajantha Mendis.

‘WE CAN DO IT’

Mahela Jayawardene is confident of ripping apart the strong Indian batting in the second cricket Test. “We have runs on the board, So our guys will go on the attack. At the same time we know they have some quality batsmen who could bat for long periods.”  “We will try and control Viru and other batsmen. We have three days of play left and just need a couple of opportunities to run through them.” “The game is in our hands. We need to put in lot of efforts”.