When dusk crawled into the Jamtha Stadium, and stumps called to end a dramatic and exhausting day, the outfield resembled the waiting hall of a medical college. Players slumped to different parts of the outfield, stretching their tired sinews and resting their drained minds, processing the events of a slow-burning, but see-sawing, day. It was a day neither team would feel inordinately happy or absurdly dejected about, which explains the state of the match – on a knife’s edge, awaiting the next big pendulum swing. Vidarbha are still the ascendant side. A first-session collapse saw them restricted to 379, when a 450-plus target loomed at stumps on Day One. But the total still daunts Kerala, who have lost three wickets for 131 runs. The red-soil strip could soon flash its venomous fangs, and the visitors have to bat last. Story continues below this ad But it could have been worse and better for both. The evening of rumination, thus, would be bittersweet. As the sun began to retreat, the sky splashed in a palette of …