IND vs SL 2017 Third Test, Day 5 : Sri Lanka sustain in Delhi, India win the series

Virat Kohli won the Man of the Series award.

Dhanajaya scored a defiant century at Kotla. (Zee Media)

It was a resistant performance from Sri Lanka in the final Test match in Delhi as they have churned out a draw and thus have survived a whitewash. India thus have won the Test series by a 2-0 margin and have maintained their unbeaten run in the home season in whites.

Sri Lanka started the day at 31 for 3 with their senior batsmen Angelo Mathews dismissed just before the end of play on Day 4. The rest of the batsmen had to ensure that they bat throughout the day to negate India a victory. They did just that as the Sri Lankan lower order stepped up to the challenge.

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Dhananjaya de Silva scored a defiant century and scored 119 before he was out retired hurt as he was suffereing from camps after his marathon innings. As he departed from the ground, India sniffed a chance again but skipper Dinesh Chandimal (36), Niroshan Dickwella (44*) and Roshen Silva (74*) helped India survive.

For India, Ravindra Jadeja who celebrated his 29th birthday today picked up three wickets in the match. Sri Lanka’s defiant batting meant the Indian bowlers only managed to pick up two Sri Lankan wickets in the entire phase of play. This Delhi Test match was no short of controversies as well. The smog in winter turned out to be a spoilsport for almost the entire length of the Test match with several Sri Lankan players getting affected by it. It came down to a situation when the Sri Lankan support staff were about to take the field but finally, the issue was sorted.

Smog played a spoilsport in the Test match. (AFP)

India will certainly be happy with the outcome of the Test series but certainly not with how the Test match panned out in Delhi. The “smog controversy” turned out to be a serious issue with couple of Indian players being affected by it as well.

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India from here on move on to their next assignment to South Africa where they will be playing a full-fledged series. This series was certainly a dress rehearsal for the big upcoming series.

Brief Scores

India 536 for 7 dec (Kohli 243, Vijay 155, Sandakan 4-167) and 246 for 5 dec (Dhawan 67) drew with Sri Lanka 373 (Chandimal 164, Mathews 111, Ashwin 3-90, Ishant 3-98) and 299 for 5 (de Silva 119 retired hurt, Roshen 74*, Jadeja 3-81)

 
 

By Anshuman Roy - 06 Dec, 2017

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