Manav Suthar has a noticeable leap in his bowling action that screams #throwback. Indian cricket's visual for left-arm spin over the last 14 years has been very different. Ravindra Jadeja's stealth at the crease has always trumped the need for fluidity. He'd begin with a couple of steps, take two or three more for his stride, then make a slight elevation, an almost unenthusiastic hop, before arriving at his delivery point. It's precise, almost to the point.

Suthar lets himself go a little with his action, still untouched by the demands of T20 cricket. There are a few more steps in his build-up, then another five or six to push forward into the leap, before it finishes with a neat, high-arm action. Jadeja rushes batters; Suthar makes them wait a touch. On Day 3 in Galle, they combined to bowl 42.5 of the 79.4 overs and picked up seven wickets between them.

Jadeja didn't enter the scene until after Suthar had made it his own. The Rajasthan spinner arrived in Sri Lanka with plenty of red-ball cricket behind him. He'd had a busy June, debuting for India against Afghanistan, picking up a six-fer before heading to Warwickshire for a two-game County stint, where he bagged a fifer. Between then and his arrival in Sri Lanka on August 4, he got a feel for bowling with the Kookaburra ball in training. All of that culminated in a first-ball wicket on Monday.

It was still the first hour of a bright and sunny morning in Galle when he came on to bowl the eighth over. The ball was new, and the surface offered generous turn. In front of him was one of Sri Lanka's most experienced batters, with a couple of notable Test centuries against India, including a 162* at this very venue.

This history lesson was invalidated by Suthar's drift on a ball where he drew Dinesh Chandimal into a forward press and had him caught behind. In that first over, Suthar generated the maximum average turn of all the 87 overs of spin bowled until that point in the Test. It was the kind of ability he carried all day, even through a middle session when the ball got soft and Sri Lankan batters grew comfortable.

Before lunch, he made another big incision. Lahiru Udara put every sinew of his being into not becoming Suthar's second wicket. The left-arm spinner got deliveries to drift in from his round-the-wicket angle, pitch on middle and leg and turn away with bounce to square up the right-hander. Udara faced 16 deliveries from Suthar before the 17th came with his name on it. Many of the balls preceding the dismissal flirted with the outside edge of Udara's bat. When the 17th was slightly shorter and quicker, Udara saw a release route. But the cut shot led to disbelief, as it landed in the hands of Yashasvi Jaiswal at backward point.

Suthar and Ravindra Jadeja didn't get to duet from the two ends in the morning session. After Suthar's exploits, Jadeja pulled off a similar dismissal to Chandimal's, getting Dhananjaya de Silva to edge behind. Shubman Gill had seen enough to unleash them together post-lunch. India's left-arm present and future were now in lockstep in the quest to tighten India's deathgrip on the Test.

For the first 40-odd minutes of this phase, Sonal Dinusha and Niroshan Dickwella were made to dance. Jadeja and Suthar got turn, bounce and plenty of edges that escaped the close-in fielders. Suthar switched sides and angles, and nearly broke through when the ball flew off the outside edge of Dickwella's bat. But it went too quickly to KL Rahul at first slip, who couldn't hold on.

The session went by, with Dinusha and Dickwella sweeping their way to runs, but the two spinners remained in sync. They maintained their pace: Suthar averaged 88.83 kmph in the first session and 86.85 kmph in the second; Jadeja went at 90.20 and 90.72 kmph respectively, even as the Kookaburra ball got soft and lost some of its bite. Their revs and degree of turn didn't dip either, but Dinusha and Dickwella batted their way out of it. Between overs, there were passing conversations between the two, perhaps the senior statesman advising the rookie to keep his chin up and keep going.

Jadeja has made that his vocation over a career that has now spanned nearly a decade-and-a-half. The left-arm spinner formed one half of India's biggest match-winning pair of this era alongside R Ashwin, and has brought enough to the table to survive the recent cull that saw some of his contemporaries walk away from the format, including Ashwin.

His freewheeling chat with Sanjay Manjarekar for the broadcaster in the lead-up to Day 2 of this Test embodied his value to the team. Asked what he was at this stage of his career, a batting all-rounder or a bowling all-rounder, Jadeja offered: "If the ball is turning, I become a frontline bowler. If it's a flat wicket and there is seam movement, like in England or Australia, then I play purely as a batter."

In England last year, when India began a new era under Shubman Gill without Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ashwin, Jadeja showed exactly what he meant. His five fifties, one century and 516-run tally across 10 innings were bettered only by Gill, Joe Root and KL Rahul. As India look to rebuild their spin attack and find the right balance for overseas sojourns, Jadeja remains the bridge between the past and the future: the last piece holding the structure together.

In the final session in Galle, a freak dismissal of Keshara Nuwantha made Jadeja only the fourth cricketer in Test history to have 350 wickets and 4000 runs to his name. Suthar, who ended the day with more wickets, walked away knowing there was still plenty to learn from Jadeja in the time they have left together in the format.

"There are lots of things (to learn from Jadeja's game). For example, he can keep bowling at the same spot. His consistency is world class. I would like to learn that from him - no matter what a batter is doing, how long can you bowl on the same spot, induce false shots," Suthar said.

By the time Australia arrive for next year's Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Jadeja will be 38. There's clearly still gas left in his tank to push on as an all-rounder, but there will come a time when India's transition catches up with him. Maybe not now, maybe sometime next year. When it does, India will hope to be prepared for fewer growing pains and a more seamless progression. It won't be easy, but at the very least, Suthar offers optimism. The Afghanistan Test was the first step in seeing if his domestic skills could translate to a level above. The Sri Lanka game, so far, has been another leap for him, and India are better for it.