Gambhir confronts issues echoed by Dravid, Shastri and those before as India stuck in an all too familiar spin rut.

Gautam Gambhir needs to find a way to arrest India’s batting collapses against quality spin, which have become a norm. Lightning evidently does strike the same place twice, at the very least. Last week in Pallekele, it struck thrice in four nights, each time precipitating a dramatic Sri Lankan collapse in the Twenty20 International series. Now, twice in three nights (and counting), it has struck the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, India at the receiving end as a proud record came to an end.At least in Pallekele, Sri Lanka had the excuse of an inexperienced line-up confronted by the World Cup champions, a formidable outfit even without bowling aces Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav. India have no such fallback; their full-strength batting unit, better than almost every other outfit in the world, keeled over for a second successive game against Sri Lankan spin. Following their 32-run defeat in the second One-Day International on Sunday, India will leave these shores without winning a bilateral series against their hosts for the first time since 1997. If they don’t level the series on Wednesday, Gautam Gambhir would have courted defeat in his first ODI series since taking over as head coach.India’s travails against the turning ball are no secret, nor are they not well documented. But because they don’t play in such conditions as were on offer at the Premadasa too frequently, they tend to get glossed over. Worryingly, India’s collapses have come after a platform has been set. On Friday in the first game, after skipper Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill put on 75 for the first wicket in 76 deliveries, India lost three for 12, which became five for 67, before scrambling to eke out a tie by drawing abreast of Sri Lanka’s 230. There was no such escape route on Sunday, when 97 without loss rapidly downslided to 147 for six. There was no late rescue act, no stirring rearguard action. India were bowled out for 208, finding Sri Lanka’s 240 for nine 32 bridges too far. Not a particularly pleasant development if one is Rohit. Go back 11 months in time, and one will realise these two collapses aren’t isolated episodes. In the Asia Cup last September, against the same opposition, Rohit and Gill had raced away to 80 in just 67 deliveries when the first wicket fell. By the time the procession ended, India had been bowled out for 213. It’s another matter that Kuldeep and Bumrah joined forces to drive Sri Lanka to their knees and secure a 41-run victory for the visitors.