Delhi: Sri Lanka produced another inspiring performance with the bat as the third and final Test of the series ended in a draw at the smog-hit Feroz Shah Kotla on Wednesday.
India thus won the series 1-0 and skipper Virat Kohli went on to equal Australian great Ricky Ponting’s record of nine consecutive Test series wins from 2005 to 2008. The Man-of-the-match as well as the Man-of-the-series, Kohli ended the series with 610 runs with a whopping average of 152.50. The prolific right-hander, who has been rested for the limited overs’ series against the same opponents thus ends 2017 with 2818 international runs.
But the visitors can indeed take a lot of positives from their inspired batting performance. In the first innings, it was a massive partnership between Dinesh Chandimal and Angelo Mathews that helped Lanka end up on 373. In the second, it was Dhananjaya De Silva who hit a 119 and debutant Roshen Silva added with 74 runs. The Indian bowlers were unable to break their 94-run partnership as the determined visitors aimed to not let this opportunity go waste. Perhaps this is the beginning of the change required in Sri Lankan cricket and the visitors can indeed be proud of themselves with the way they’ve played this match.
Ravindra Jadeja emerged as the most successful bowler for India as he snared three wickets while Ravichandran Ashwin and Mohammad Shami scalped one wicket each.
Brief scores-
Sri Lanka 373 all out and 299/5 (Dhananjaya De Silva 119; Roshen Silva 74 n.o; Ravindra Jadeja 3/81) drew with India 536/7 decl and 246/5.