The top order as a whole has never come close to producing the kinds of runs Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, and TM Dilshan used to bring to the table. It has been more than ten years since they retired. Sri Lanka's opening partnership stats have suffered substantially since the exit of Dimuth Karunaratne, the last Sri Lanka Test cricketer to reliably make the annual ICC XI. And on the spin front, Sri Lanka are weaker than they have been this century, as evidenced by another muted performance on what is traditionally a spin paradise.
But as Sri Lanka's Test performances continue to slip from former heights, at least one bowler is holding the fort for excellence. Twenty-seven Tests into his career, Asitha Fernando averages 26.75 in this format, which for a bowler who plays mostly in Asia is verging on outstanding. Chaminda Vaas, unquestionably Sri Lanka's greatest ever seam bowler, averaged 29.58, just as a frame of reference. Asitha has only 93 wickets to Vaas' 355, but where Vaas was playing in a transformative era, Asitha is embedded in what appears to be an era of slow decline. Not only have Sri Lanka lost seven Tests in Galle already this decade, even the cricketers who initially impress in Test cricket soon run into difficulty.
Asitha has found a way to build upwards instead. He seems to be in a consolidation phase of his career, gradually developing the skills that first got him picked, while paring down the weaknesses. As he is short for a seamer, Asitha may always be viewed as a scrapper, which perhaps is a description he himself likes.
At his fastest, he is only touching 140kph, and there is no booming swing or an unconventional action to add to his menace. But at 29 years of age, he is as intense as he ever has been. And increasingly, he does not allow himself to have bad days. This is not a bowler pundits will say has a "high ceiling". Instead, he has made himself a cricketer who has a high floor. In the second innings, with Sri Lanka having conceded a first-innings lead of 178, Asitha took 4 for 31 on a track better suited to the spinners than him, to keep India under some kind of check.
Bowling him on day four had twin benefits for Sri Lanka. Seam bowlers tend to slow the rate of play, as Sri Lanka sought to stretch out the India innings, with a draw perhaps the best they can hope for from here. And at his most miserly, Asitha also offers excellent control to Sri Lanka captains seeking to keep an end quiet.
But Asitha himself is wired to attack. Not for him is the method of someone like Suranga Lakmal, who viewed himself as a purely defensive bowler in Sri Lankan conditions. Asitha wants wickets. Where Lakmal, across his 26 home Tests, had a strike rate of 91.1, though his focus may have been an economy rate of 3.12, Asitha has a home strike rate of 48.8, while going at 3.36 an over. On day four, his wicked bouncer frequently forced batting errors. Three of his four wickets came from shorter balls.
Though no huge purveyor of swing and seam, Asitha also bowls probing lines in the channel, has a mean yorker, and utilises reverse swing. Even on flat surfaces, there is barely ever a bad spell.
"He's becoming a very experienced fast bowler, having taken 90-odd wickets," Sri Lanka bowling coach Ryan van Niekerk said. "He's got the ability to hold the game with the consistency that he has, but he's also got the ability to break up the game. He's got a quicker bouncer than people realise. Utilising that skill makes him effective, because his fuller deliveries are difficult to navigate.
"From our point of view he's leading our attack beautifully. He's taken on the challenge of taking wickets. Fast bowlers can play a holding role, but he wants the ball in hand to take wickets."
If you are a long-suffering follower of Sri Lanka's fast-bowling ailments, Asitha's other strength is his durability. You can put the man through a 40-over Test and reliably expect him to recover for another one. In a country where fast-bowling hamstrings are so fragile even looking at them for too long may cause them to tear, Asitha has maintained fitness better than anyone else. Part of this is to do with his training. No Sri Lanka fast bowler gives off his sense of desperation. And few have willed themselves into success as he has.