Peer through the mists of time, to an age long before Sri Lanka spent 14 months without a home Test, and you may glimpse a past in which Sri Lanka spinners ran through teams at Galle.
Every time Muthiah Muralidaran sneezed at this venue, five batters would have fallen over bowled or caught at slip. He had 111 wickets here at an average of 18.50. But then he was an otherworldly talent, and cannot be fruitfully compared to the rest of us. Rangana Herath, who was a little more mortal, took 102 wickets at this venue himself, averaging 24.94, frequently gobbling up entire batting orders whole at this venue. As all spin-bowling bodies are beloved here, please do not imagine him patting his belly and belching in satisfaction afterwards. The man is a legend. Show respect.
The third-highest wicket-taker at this venue is Prabath Jayasuriya, who has 82 dismissals at an average of 27.24. If you're clocking that we're getting a little more mortal with every era, you're following closely. Before Sri Lanka landed on Jayasuriya for the lead spinner position, there had been others they trialled - Akila Dananjaya, Lakshan Sandakan, Lasith Embuldeniya, Praveen Jayawickrama, and Tharindu Kaushal going even further back. The best Sri Lanka Test teams have always had spinners who could reliably run through opposition batters at home. And Galle, with its naturally abrasive surface and the cross-wind that dries out a pitch rapidly through a Test, felt like the cricket gods' gift to spin bowling. The great Shane Warne averaged 14.84 here. But England allrounder Dom Bess also has a five-wicket haul at the venue. If you are a spinner, Galle tends to take all comers.
Sri Lanka, right now, are trying to rediscover some of that old Galle magic. But the truth is, this is no longer the fortress it used to be for them, primarily because their spinners aren't spinning it like they used to spin it here. Since the start of this decade, against World Test Championship opposition, Sri Lanka have actually lost more matches than they have won - Australia winning three times at this venue, Pakistan twice, and England twice.
In the Herath years, Sri Lanka had a blueprint for victory here. Roll out a rank turner, schmooze the match referee juuuust enough to prevent the ICC black-marking the venue, watch Herath do the rest. Now, minus bankable spin-bowling matchwinners, the strategy is a little more muddled. In the last Test in Galle before this one, Sri Lanka could only take 16 Bangladesh wickets as they piled on 780 runs through the course of the Test. In the 2010s, there was arguably no greater interrogation of a batter's technique against spin bowling than a Test in Galle.
On the first day of the first Test against India, Sri Lanka's spinners didn't really even force India's batters to stretch up into the higher reaches of their spin-playing ability, for most of the day. First days in Galle are generally slow, but this was an exceptionally placid day even by those standards. In the first session, no chances of note were created by the bowlers. India suffered a run-out, but that was mostly of their own openers' devising. Aside from one not-especially-close bat-pad chance off KL Rahul, the spinners could claim to have had little menace until Shubman Gill skied a ball off Jayasuriya midway through the evening session.
Devdutt Padikkal moved to 131 off 178 balls so smoothly, it felt like he was playing his 83rd Test rather than his third. Keshara Nuwantha, on debut, conceded 98 without a wicket. He was the more attacking of Sri Lanka's spinners on day one and extracted significant turn. But significant turn doesn't win matches. Wickets, however…
With luck, this pitch will dry out quickly, and the wicketfest can begin for spinners. In the evening session on a rain-curtailed day one, the ball seemed to be taking off from the surface a little more. But the long-view data on Sri Lanka's spin resources is already in. That there was never going to be a replacement for Murali is obvious. A replacement for Herath, though, is a more achievable goal, and Sri Lanka have not really come close yet. There is no spinner in the system for whom Sri Lanka would confidently roll out a turning track, even if both New Zealand and South Africa have had spinners who mowed through the India batting order in the last three years.
Winning Tests in Galle through spin used to once be a foundational facet of Sri Lanka's Test cricket. If nothing else was working, they could at least win this way, at this venue. On day one against India, Sri Lanka seemed to have moved a little further from that past.