1st Test
Day 1
India 399/3 (90 ov)
Sri Lanka
Seldom have Indian Test teams gone on tour and enjoyed a first day this dominant. Batting first at one of the most bat-first grounds in the world, they cruised along at more than four an over while losing only three wickets, one in each session, going to stumps one short of 400.
Shikhar Dhawan, back at the top of the order after missing India's last 11 Tests, scored a century in a session for the second time in his career, rekindling memories of his blazing 187 on debut. Having surpassed that score, he fell three minutes from tea, failing to clear mid-off when he was ten short of a maiden double-hundred.
Cheteshwar Pujara, who walked in in the eighth over of the morning, was still batting at stumps, on a serene 144 that was not only chanceless but almost without blemish. According to ESPNcricinfo's ball-by-ball scorers, he was "not in control" only once while facing 247 deliveries. That statistic reflected how good a grassier-than-normal Galle pitch was to bat on, and how good Sri Lanka's attack was to bat against, but also how impervious Pujara was to distraction of any kind.
Also unbeaten at stumps was Ajinkya Rahane, who added an unbroken 113 with Pujara to shut the door on Sri Lanka after two wickets either side of tea had given them the most fleeting glimmer of hope.
One of those wickets was of Dhawan. The other was of Virat Kohli, India's captain, who was out to the short ball - as he was a couple of times in the ODIs in the West Indies that preceded this tour - tickling an attempted hook to the keeper.
Nuwan Pradeep, who returned from the hamstring injury that had kept him out of the Test against Zimbabwe earlier this month, was Sri Lanka's only wicket-taker. He was no less patchy with his lines and lengths than the rest of Sri Lanka's attack, but he produced two genuinely wicket-taking deliveries, the bouncer to Kohli and, in the eighth over of the morning, a good-length ball from around the wicket that straightened in the corridor outside off stump. Abhinav Mukund's front foot hardly come out of his crease, and had just landed on its heel when he jabbed uncertainly in defence and edged behind.
Six overs later, Sri Lanka let Dhawan off when he was on 31. Pitching one up outside off, Lahiru Kumara induced Dhawan's only loose drive of the morning session. Diving to his left from second slip, Asela Gunaratne got both hands to the ball but failed to hold on. Then he went off the field, holding on gingerly to an already heavily strapped left hand. It later emerged that the ball had fractured Gunaratne's left thumb, and that he was unlikely to play any further part in the match.
Insult followed injury. Dhawan made no other mistakes, moving to 64 by lunch. He had only hit eight fours in the first session, while still cruising at a strike rate in the 70s thanks to a proactive pursuit of quick singles, but exploded thereafter, hitting 23 fours, all around the dial, in the second session.
Between lunch and his dismissal, Dhawan scored 126 off 90 balls, breaking Polly Umrigar's India record of 110 in the post-lunch session, made during his innings of 172* in Port-of-Spain in April 1962. Virender Sehwag, who scored 133 in the post-tea session against Sri Lanka at the Brabourne Stadium in 2009, is the only Indian batsman to score more runs in a session.
Rangana Herath set defensive fields throughout this onslaught, but Dhawan kept breaching the boundary no matter how many fielders he sent out to protect it. Kumara, who endured the kind of nightmare day that occasionally afflicts young, erratic quicks early in their careers, had a fielder stationed at deep point, and Dhawan beat him twice in one over, slapping the ball once to his right and once to his left.
Dilruwan Perera tried bowling over the wicket with a short fine leg and a deep backward square leg in place. Twice in one over, Dhawan swept him between those two fielders. Then, having shown off the flat, square-ish sweep, he went across to a nicely flighted, good-length ball from Herath and lap-swept him fine, before jumping out to his next ball and drilling him fiercely down the ground.
The forays down the pitch were frequent, and hugely productive. On India's last tour of this country, their batsmen had made a conscious decision to step out to the spinners after their initial crease-bound approach had contributed to a first-Test defeat. The emphasis on using their feet had coincided with Herath becoming less of a force in the second and third Tests, which India won.
Dhawan and Pujara kept the flame of 2015 burning. Dhawan stepped out 29 times, scoring 36 runs including seven fours, and Pujara danced down 50 times, scoring 39 runs including three fours.
Sri Lanka enforced a brief lull in India's scoring following the wickets of Dhawan and Kohli, with Rahane taking 40 balls to get into double figures. Pujara, though, eased whatever pressure it may have created on his partner, skipping down the track twice in one over to drive Herath to the extra-cover and straight boundaries, and in the next over lashing Kumara through the covers, one ball after he had brought up his 12th Test hundred.
Day 2
India 600
Sri Lanka 154/5 (44 ov)
Sri Lanka trail by 446 runs with 5 wickets remaining in the 1st innings
Swing, seam, pace and bounce. Dip, drift, turn and bounce. Ingredients that seemed largely absent when India piled on 600, their second-highest total in Sri Lanka, haunted the home side in their reply, as they ended the second day of the Galle Test five down with the follow-on mark still 247 runs away.
Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami took the top order apart, even as Upul Tharanga hurtled along with a profusion of silken off-side boundaries. Then came R Ashwin, going around the wicket to left and right-handers alike, harnessing the sea breeze and testing both edges with drift, swinging arm balls, and the occasional instance of sharp turn. Over the course of an unbroken spell of 18 overs, he gradually discovered the ideal pace and angle of seam to extract the maximum possible help from the Galle pitch, and could have easily ended the day with more than one wicket.
Umesh gave India their first breakthrough, in the second over of Sri Lanka's innings. Swing did Dimuth Karunaratne in, a full ball curling back into the left-hander from over the wicket and forcing him to play around his front pad. He missed and reviewed Bruce Oxenford's lbw decision, a wasted referral given there was no inside edge, and that the ball had pitched on middle stump and had straightened down that line.
For a time, Danushka Gunathilaka, making his Test debut, matched Tharanga shot for shot, as the two left-handers drove repeatedly on the up during a second-wicket partnership of 61 at just under five an over. But he played one shot too many, feet rooted to the crease as he flashed at, and edged, a Shami delivery angled across him.
Kusal Mendis, in at No. 4, had the misfortune of getting a Shami special when he was still to get off the mark. It hit the seam in the corridor, seamed away slightly with some extra bounce, and all he could do was nick it. Two times in five balls, Shikhar Dhawan was the catcher at first slip.
The next two wickets fell during Ashwin's long and endlessly tormenting spell. The first began with his drift and dip beating Tharanga in the air. Having jumped out of his crease and inside-edged into his pad, he turned and hurried back as the ball rolled towards Abhinav Mukund at silly point. Abhinav flicked the ball to the keeper, and when the bails came off, Tharanga's bat, after a momentary grounding on the dive, had bounced up. A cruel end to an innings of 64 and a 57-run fourth-wicket stand with Mathews.
Then came the wicket of another left-hander, Niroshan Dickwella, who pressed forward but found himself nowhere near the pitch of the ball, thanks to Ashwin's dip. Extra bounce grabbed the shoulder of his jabbing defensive bat, and Mukund, diving right at silly point, took a superb, low one-hander.
Mathews struggled initially against Ashwin, and on 32 survived an lbw decision reviewed by India when ball-tracking returned an umpire's call verdict. He slowly grew in assurance, and ended the day batting on 54 with Dilruwan Perera for company. With Asela Gunaratne, who fractured his left thumb on the first day, unlikely to bat, Sri Lanka have quite a task ahead of them.
An improved bowling display from Sri Lanka, led by Nuwan Pradeep, who finished with 6 for 132, threatened at various points to limit India's total. But the lower order, led by Ashwin and the debutant Hardik Pandya, kept counter-punching.
India lost both their overnight batsmen, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane, inside 12 overs of the morning, both out to seam. Away-seam and extra bounce from Nuwan Pradeep found Pujara's edge on 153, while Rahane, driving away from his body at a rare full ball from Lahiru Kumara, edged to slip.
Despite the selection of Pandya, India stuck with Ashwin and Wriddhiman Saha at Nos. 6 and 7, trusting their experience and proven firefighting abilities ahead of the debutant's promise. Ashwin and Saha had put on three fifty partnerships and one double-century stand, and averaged 47.50 as a pair since the start of 2016. They combined once again to stall Sri Lanka's momentum, adding 59 for the sixth wicket.
Not for the first time in his career, Ashwin began finding the gaps almost as soon as he walked in, and took three fours from successive Herath overs, twice driving him through the off side and once stepping out to clip him between midwicket and mid-on. In all, he would hit seven fours in a 60-ball 47.
Both fell in the space of six balls, with lunch imminent, and when Pradeep took his sixth wicket after the break, cleaning up Ravindra Jadeja with the bouncer-yorker double, Sri Lanka may have hoped for a quick end to the innings.
As it turned out, India's last two wickets added 83 in 71 balls in a burst of six-hitting. The quicks leaked runs in an effort to pepper the lower order with the short ball, and Herath kept get hitting back over his head, notably by Mohammed Shami who hit him for three sixes. Pandya hit three sixes too, all off Pradeep, two hooked over backward square leg and one whipped over midwicket.
The dismissal of Shami, caught on the square-leg boundary off Kumara, ended a ninth-wicket stand of 62, but Sri Lanka's ordeal wasn't yet over. Umesh Yadav, India's No. 11, also joined in the hitting spree, taking Kumara for a big six down the ground and Herath for the lofted four that brought up India's 600.
Pandya, who had brought up his half-century, off 48 balls, in the same Herath over, fell soon after, finding deep square leg while going after another short ball from Kumara.
Day 3
India 600 & 189/3 (46.3 ov)
Sri Lanka 291
India lead by 498 runs with 7 wickets remaining
India declined to enforce the follow-on after securing a 309-run first-innings lead, and extended it by a further 189 runs at stumps on day three. Virat Kohli and Abhinav Mukund, whose careers have traced vastly different trajectories since they made their Test debuts in the same match six years ago, led India's second-innings effort, adding 133 for the third wicket at 4.48 an over. The partnership came to an end in the last over of the day, Danushka Gunathilaka getting one to go with the angle from around the wicket to trap Abhinav lbw for 81.
Until then, the third-wicket pair had enjoyed a pleasant stay in the middle, with Sri Lanka in damage-control mode throughout, and with Rangana Herath off the field for the last hour, having hurt his finger while diving to stop a powerful Kohli drive. The moment, captain inflicting pain upon captain, perfectly encapsulated the match situation.
With India unlikely to stretch their second innings for too much longer, Sri Lanka face a gargantuan task on the last two days. The highest successful chase at this venue is 99. The highest score made in a fourth innings here - win, lose or draw - is 300. The weather could well be the only thing in the home side's favour.
Rain brought an early end to the middle session after India had lost their two first-innings centurions. Shikhar Dhawan failied to keep a cut down off Dilruwan Perera, while Cheteshwar Pujara clipped Kumara straight to a strategically positioned leg gully. Rain arrived immediately after Pujara's dismissal, 30 minutes before the scheduled tea break.
Play resumed after a break of an hour and 24 minutes. Kohli, the only Indian batsman to not get into double figures in the first innings, made a typically domineering start full of drives through cover before settling into a more prosaic pattern of collecting the uncontested singles made available by Sri Lanka's defensive fields. Abhinav, who is likely to miss the next Test should KL Rahul return from illness, showed off the timing that has yet to fully assert itself in his so-far stop-start career, stepping out to clip Dilruwan Perera against the turn, hooking Lahiru Kumara between long leg and deep square leg, and using the pace adroitly when given width.
Ravindra Jadeja ended Sri Lanka's innings nine balls after lunch, beating Kumara's defensive bat with one that turned just enough to miss the outside edge and hit off stump. At the non-striker's end was Perera, stranded eight short of a maiden Test hundred. His proactive approach had led Sri Lanka's fight in the morning session, in which they scored 135 runs at just over four an over, while losing three wickets.
Perera, batting above No. 8 for only the sixth time in 31 Test innings, did his best to make up for the absence of the injured Asela Gunaratne from Sri Lanka's line-up, showing not just the skills to survive but also an ability to take calculated risks and keep the scoreboard moving. He showed early intent against the spinners, stepping out to Jadeja in the second over of the day and hitting him flat, over the non-striker's head. Not long after, he went down on one knee and slog-swept the left-arm spinner over midwicket. That was to be the first of four sixes from Perera, two each off Jadeja and R Ashwin.
He took on the quicks too, most notably when he made room against Umesh Yadav to slap and ramp him for two fours, either side of third man, shortly after he had brought up his fifth Test fifty. Umesh kept bowling short - intentionally, with two fielders back on the hook - but did not trouble Perera unduly. In his next over, he flat-batted a pull from outside off to the wide long-on boundary.
By that time, Sri Lanka had lost Angelo Mathews, who moved from 54 to 83 before driving too early at a flighted ball from Jadeja and picking out short cover. Jadeja then went on to remove Rangana Herath, who gloved a reverse-sweep to slip. Hardik Pandya took the only other wicket of the session, his first in Test cricket, Nuwan Pradeep bowled playing down the wrong line.
Herath and Pradeep only made 9 and 10, but with Perera scoring quickly at the other end, the seventh- and eight-wicket partnerships added 36 and 39.
Day 4
India 600 & 240/3d
Sri Lanka 291 & 245 (76.5 ov, target: 550)
India won by 304 runs
R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja took three wickets each as India wrapped up a 304-run win - their biggest runs margin away - halfway through the final session of day four. With finger injuries leaving Rangana Herath and Asela Gunaratne unavailable to bat, India only needed to take eight second-innings wickets. They completed the task in 76.5 overs, with Dimuth Karunaratne and Niroshan Dickwella proving their only real roadblocks.
Karunaratne enhanced his reputation as a specialist in the second innings - where he now averages 42.14 as against 27.32 in the first - with 97, while Dickwella contributed a skittish 67 to a fifth-wicket stand of 101.
Otherwise, India didn't have to work too hard for wickets on a firmer-than-usual Galle pitch that offered consistent bounce and only occasionally sharp turn, after setting Sri Lanka the task of surviving the best part of two full days or chasing an improbable 550.
The fifth-wicket partnership looked unlikely to last too long when it began, with Dickwella playing a series of risky shots - sweeps off the stumps, inside-out drives, dabs with an open face - while new to the crease. But he survived and eventually settled, and Sri Lanka could breathe a little easier, particularly with Karunaratne looking calm and secure at the other end, taking the singles afforded him by Virat Kohli's puzzlingly defensive fields and picking up the odd boundary with the square-cut or flick.
But danger was never too far away. As tea approached, Hardik Pandya found both batsmen's outside edges in a seven-over spell of reverse-swing. Karunaratne's uncertain jab flew through a mostly vacant cordon - one wide slip and no gully - and Dickwella's was shelled by Ajinkya Rahane, who flew to his left from gully for a difficult one-hander.
Eventually, both batsmen were out sweeping Ashwin. Dickwella fell in the fifth over after tea, undone by bounce and sending a thin edge to the keeper, and Karunaratne followed him 11.3 overs later, dragging a bottom-edge onto his stumps when he was in sight of a sixth Test hundred. Nuwan Pradeep then fell for a two-ball duck, stretching out and failing to get to the pitch of an Ashwin offbreak that grabbed inside-edge on its way to a diving catch at leg slip. Lahiru Kumara was last to go, top-edging a slog-sweep off Jadeja and holing out to mid-off.
The new-ball bowlers took an early wicket each after India declared early in the morning. Mohammed Shami struck the first blow, going around the wicket, hitting the seam, and getting the ball to bounce disconcertingly at Upul Tharanga. First, the ball seamed away just a touch after angling in, and Tharanga, poking away from his body, edged to second slip, where Kohli shelled a sitter. No worries for Shami. One ball later, he produced another peach, this one coming back in, lifting, and cramping the left-hander for room. All he could do was chop the ball on to his stumps.
Then, in the sixth over of Sri Lanka's innings, Danushka Gunathilaka fell to a loose shot for the second time on Test debut. Umesh Yadav had Cheteshwar Pujara stationed at square leg, just in front of square. It was either a routine field placement or India had sussed out a tendency to flick in the air. In either case, he failed to keep that shot down against a full ball that swung into his pads, and Pujara took a simple, low catch.
Karunaratne and Kusal Mendis took Sri Lanka to lunch with a half-century stand for the third wicket. They weren't especially tight with their defence, every now and then playing and missing when they could have left alone. One loose drive from Mendis, off Umesh, resulted in an edge that didn't quite carry to second slip. That apart, though, both batsmen looked comfortable, Karunaratne strong off his pads and Mendis fluent while driving and cutting.
The spinners, who hadn't yet settled in their 10 overs before lunch, began finding more turn and bounce after the break. In the seventh over after the break, a tendency to play away from his body at Jadeja consumed Mendis. Having just punched Jadeja to cover off the back foot, he tried the same shot off the next ball. This one, though, was fired in quicker, and bounced higher to take the edge.
Three-and-a-half-overs later, Angelo Mathews fell to an ill-advised shot, jumping out and looking to hit over mid-on. To give the bowler credit, though, Jadeja beat the batsman in the air, and found sharp turn. Nowhere near the pitch, Mathews sent a leading edge ballooning to backward point.
India declared 6.3 overs into the morning, having clattered 51 in that time, with Virat Kohli, who resumed on 76, bringing up his 17th Test hundred and 10th as captain. Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane hit only two fours and a six in that time, but scored off all but seven balls they faced, against Sri Lanka's deep-set fields.
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2nd Test
Day 1
India 344/3 (90 ov)
Sri Lanka
In addition to all the runs, a contest came India's way in Colombo, and they were ready for it thanks to the aptitude of Ajinkya Rahane and the appetite of Cheteshwar Pujara. Centuries from two of India's top five and 344 first-innings runs by stumps on the first day is exactly the position a team 1-0 up in a three-match series would want. Especially on a pitch that doted on the spinners.
The conditions - nowhere near drastic, but certainly challenging - fostered high-quality cricket. The scoring rate was a healthy 3.8 per over, but the outside and inside edges of the Indian batsmen bore more red marks than they had done in Galle. Only one of them proved fatal, though - the captain Virat Kohli was caught splendidly by Angelo Mathews at slip for 13 off Rangana Herath. The rest were smuggled wide of the fielders skillfully and carefully. And with time, they disappeared completely.
At the forefront of this operation was a man nominated for the Arjuna award, on the day he was playing his 50th Test, securing his 4000th run and his 13th century. Pujara found the spotlight rather amenable and he put on display all the qualities that have made him a magnet for runs.
He was unflappable, putting behind him a mix-up that led to KL Rahul's run-out for 57. He was game-aware, for that wicket had led to another, pushing India from 109 for 1 to 133 for 3. But mindful of not letting the opposition get on a roll, he accelerated from 14 off 58 at lunch to 89 off 140 at tea and finished unbeaten on 128 at stumps.
Rahane at the other end found his timing straightaway and took time out of his schedule to put on a batting clinic, shifting deep in his crease to whip anything even slightly short through midwicket, and wading down the pitch upon the first sign of flight to hit down the ground. It was the kind of counterattack Mitchell Johnson and Australia had faced in Melbourne in 2014. And it appears there is plenty more to come. That moment early in day, when Dilruwan Perera won a review to trap Shikhar Dhawan lbw for 35, almost seemed like a dream.
Things could have been so different. Sri Lanka armed themselves with three spinners, but barring Perera, who threatened both edges of the bat with his drift and turn, they couldn't manufacture enough pressure to worry the Indians. But they did try.
Pujara, with a reputation for annoying spinners in the same way as a pop quiz on Friday evening, nearly edged to slip when on 1 and only just avoided short-leg's hands in the last over before lunch. He spent 30 balls without scoring after being beaten by Herath in the 21st over. But none of that perturbed him. He waited for the mistakes, he suckered some of them into coming his way with his constant forays down the pitch and went to tea with 70 runs off his latest 71 balls.
While there was a six during this spree, his best shot was a cover drive, for not only did it exemplify his swiftness down the pitch, but also the ability to counter a misbehaving ball. It was the 42nd over and Pujara was halfway down when he realised Perera had managed to drift it away from his reach. But by adjusting his momentum and stretching his front leg a little further across, he got close enough to the ball to thump it with a straight bat.
Rahane offered a different challenge with his sense for the ball and silken timing. And they were both so good that he didn't need to worry unduly about getting right to the pitch of the ball or waiting patiently for the rank long hop, and put away even the good balls. He whipped the bowlers through midwicket (18 runs), launched them through or over cover (26) and drummed them down the ground (34) with ridiculous ease. Protecting so many parts of the ground proved futile for the Sri Lanka captain Dinesh Chandimal.
Rahul might well have enjoyed his team-mates' success, but for the longest time it seemed like he would be the first to reach a hundred. He had spent his first few days on the tour locked in hospital, staring at fluorescent lights. He had been told he would have the chance to finally play some cricket, out in the sun, with fresh air and no doctors. So naturally he wanted to stay outside for as long as possible and so well was he accomplishing that aim that he scored his sixth successive fifty in Test cricket, equalling the Indian record set by GR Viswanath and Rahul Dravid, playing some superb shots. There was a short-arm pull against debutant Malinda Pushpakumara over deep midwicket when the length invited that shot about as much as a cactus tempts a person to sit on it.
But a mix-up - Rahul hit to short cover and wanted the single, Pujara did too, then he changed his mind - and Rahul was forced back indoors, under the glare of the fluorescent lights again.
Day 2
India 622/9d
Sri Lanka 50/2 (20 ov)
Sri Lanka trail by 572 runs with 8 wickets remaining in the 1st innings
India lost their centurions, one at the start of play, and the other about half an hour to lunch, in a manner that suggested Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane had heard the calls from the dressing room that they were hogging all the fun. Once they relented, a strong lower order - with an allrounder at No. 9 - took their total past 600 for the sixth time in nine months. Sri Lanka did have a few moments to celebrate, of course, but each time their batsmen cast a suspicious eye on the pitch. It had begun puffing up clouds of dust like a steam train from the sixties.
Virat Kohli declared on 622 for 9, giving the opposition 20 overs to survive. Upul Tharanga fell for a duck with the ball - juicy, short and on leg stump - sticking in short leg's midriff. As he walked back, he might have felt like that kid in the arcade who had stood in an endless queue, impatiently waiting for their turn to have some fun, but just as he got his hands on the controllers, there was a city-wide power outage.
India's spinners continued to create more chances - the hard new ball offering more bite off the pitch - and Dimuth Karunaratne succumbed for 25. R Ashwin was the successful bowler on both occasions as he strutted out his offbreaks like an art collector exhibiting his best pieces. There was the old faithful, with a 45-degree seam, turning and bouncing sharply. The cheeky undercutter, that comes out with no change in grip or action but for the seam being almost perpendicular to the pitch. And finally the bold carrom ball, probing the other edge. All of them were aimed at off stump, so there were no easy leaves.
By the end of the day, no one would be blamed for forgetting he had also scored important runs. Ashwin struck one of six fifties for India - a feat his team has achieved only twice in 253 away Tests. He got off the mark with an airy boundary behind point, pierced gaps at cover that seemed non-existent, and with a six over long-off, he asserted his place among the best in the business. Only 15 allrounders have claimed 2000 runs and 250 wickets in Tests. Ashwin reached there quicker than anybody else, in 51 matches.
Wriddhiman Saha had watched a team-mate being stumped after haring down the track, but that had no bearing on his move to do the same and swat his fourth ball to the long-on boundary. He is a composed player of spin because of his ability to both sweep and stride down the pitch. He can then choose to attack or defend or nudge gaps - which were available aplenty as the total swelled monstrously.
India scored a hundred or more in four of the five full sessions they batted at the Sinhalese Sports Club, and the only time they couldn't, they'd already racked up 98. The carnage almost spilled over, in the 131st and 149th overs, when after berating the bowlers, Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja took aim at umpire Rod Tucker with blistering straight drives. Thankfully, his reflexes were spot on.
Sri Lanka began the morning a bowler short - Nuwan Pradeep, the only specialist seamer and taker of six wickets in Galle, was down with a hamstring injury. And to make up for his loss, they gave their opening batsman the second new ball. Karunarante responded with a nip-backer that pinned Pujara in front of the stumps in the second over of the day for the first wicket of his career. He only had to wait 41 Tests, and the time it took to overrule umpire Bruce Oxenford's on-field decision by DRS.
So the man who had struck three centuries in three matches in this country, bested Dhammika Prasad on a green seamer in 2015, and Rangana Herath on this soon-to-be dust bowl, fell to a man who was bowling for only the second time in Test cricket. In other words, Pujara had leapt over the alligators in the moat, squeezed into the gap just as the draw bridge closed, slid down it with his arms raised aloft at a successful breach only to crash headlong into a guard sleeping against the wall.
Rahane took charge of the invasion now, progressing smoothly until he found fit to attack debutant Malinda Pushpakumara in the 111th over. Three balls previously, the left-arm spinner had pushed one past the outside edge, and in an effort to reverse the pressure, Rahane danced down the track only to be deceived in flight and mugged by sharp turn. Pushpakumara screamed as only a man who had until then been treated like a defective Herath clone could. It was his first Test wicket, his 559th in first-class games.
The original was starting to struggle too. Short balls from Herath once seemed like a set-up but now they are just reminders that the man is nearly 40 years old and is perhaps not putting as much body into his action as he used to. The evidence of the purchase he can elicit when he does so was apparent in the 122nd over, when a quicker delivery beat Ashwin's late cut and crashed into his off stump. It was clocked at 91 kph by the speedgun, the exact pace Jadeja likes to bowl, and this is rapidly becoming the kind of pitch he can exploit rather effectively.
His next wicket - Saha stumped after the ball left behind a crater in the surface - had all of the Sri Lankans crowding around the good length area like people surveying a car crash. At stumps, they had two extremely talented batsmen unbeaten - the captain Dinesh Chandimal on 8 and Kusal Mendis on 16 - to combat a deficit of 572 runs.
Day 3
India 622/9d
Sri Lanka 183 & 209/2 (60 ov, f/o)
Sri Lanka trail by 230 runs with 8 wickets remaining
For the morning session, India were like the pink panther, playing pranks, drawing laughs and having life be ever so blissful. They bowled the opposition out for 183, gained a lead of 439 and enforced the follow-on. In the same time, Sri Lanka were like Jacques Clouseau, bumbling and fumbling their way through the investigation to figure out how to bat on a spiteful pitch. And then came a dramatic role-reversal.
As has been his wont in a short career, Kusal Mendis was at the forefront of it, with 110 off only 135 balls, with 68 runs in boundaries. Granted, he could have been out for 1 had the catch he gave Shikhar Dhawan at mid-on been held, but in recovering from that and counterattacking with skill and self-belief, he walked away with an innings of breathtaking quality. Led by his epic, Sri Lanka finished the day trailing by 230 runs with eight wickets in hand. But they will have to come back tomorrow with him in the pavilion as Hardik Pandya snaffled him in the sixth over before stumps.
Second in command of the firefight was Dimuth Karunaratne, who made 92. His tempo was markedly different for he doesn't have the shots that his partner does. But he is rather good at playing close to his body. The only indulgence he allowed himself was the odd reverse sweep, but his greatest strength, one that helped him bat out two full sessions, was the ability to forget about the jaffa that went past his edge and concentrate on the next one.
Their partnership - the second highest for the second wicket while following on - was all the more remarkable because it came on the same surface where, only hours ago, balls had darted past the outside edge like smooth criminals. The stumps had a target on them and India's bowlers lined up like broke bounty hunters to claim the reward. The poor Sri Lanka batsmen were simply bystanders caught in the chaos replying to India's 622.
But Niroshan Dickwella stood out playing the left-handed, travel-friendly version of Dinesh Chandimal's 162* in Galle two years ago. But he could only get as far as 51 before one of his many sweeps, rather inconveniently, crashed into middle stump. Still, his approach had given Sri Lanka a template to counter high-quality bowling on what was revealed as a temperamental turner. Help came whenever R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja had asked for it in the first innings. One took his 26th five-wicket haul, the other became the quickest left-armer to 150 Test wickets. Things were a little harder in the second.
Mendis and his sweeps were the biggest reason for that. He claimed 42 runs off 21 balls with that shot accessing both square - like he did to reach his third Test hundred - and straight - some of his 17 fours went past mid-on. Essentially, India's spinners felt like they were trying to sneak the ball past a rapidly revolving door. And they just couldn't.
Such kind of clarity of mind was absent in Sri Lanka's first innings. So the bowlers could settle into their lines and lengths.
A measure of how hard it was to face Jadeja on this surface came in the 35th over. Dhananjaya de Silva, playing only his second international game in four months, was faced with a fullish delivery. But since it clocked 95 kph there was no time to move the front foot to cover the line. He tried desperately to defend but before he knew it, his off stump was rattled. For all the good it did for the batsman to make his way out to the crease, he could just as well have sent out a hologram of himself.
Ashwin, meanwhile, picked up a five-for like it was a loaf of bread at a supermarket. Extra bounce, and exceptional fielding from Cheteshwar Pujara, diving low to his left at leg slip, did Angelo Mathews. Drift, dip and turn confounded Dilruwan Perera. And poor Nuwan Pradeep, with a busted hamstring, ushered the ball onto his stumps off an inside edge.
Funnily enough, Sri Lanka made exactly 183 in exactly 49.4 overs in the first innings against India on the 2015 tour, and won that game. Are they on the same path in 2017?
Day 4
India 622/9d
Sri Lanka 183 & 386 (116.5 ov, f/o)
India won by an innings and 53 runs
India wrapped up a series victory away from home in eight days of Test cricket. And they were only really challenged over the last two. The formalities were completed four minutes before tea with Ravindra Jadeja picking up his ninth five-for in the same match he became the fastest left-armer to 150 wickets.
He was far from the only protagonist of an absorbing game in Colombo. There were backs-to-the-wall-and-nose-to-the-barrel hundreds from Kusal Mendis and Dimuth Karunaratne, which will certainly give Sri Lanka hope for the future, but in the present they just weren't enough.
And finally, a mention for the pitch, which made balls scoot and bounce and rag and slip into other dimensions and come back a pineapple.
The result of this Test - India's first innings win in Sri Lanka - was evident from the moment they racked up a total of 622 and enforced the follow-on. Oppositions forced into this predicament need a bit of a hero and Karunaratne stepped up. He was in his element, of course. Four of his six Test hundreds have come in the second innings - and this will rank alongside the 152 he made in New Zealand in 2014, when an axe hung over his head.
Karunarante might not have got there had KL Rahul held a relatively straightforward chance at short leg in the 90s, but mistakes such as those were rare, simply because he didn't want them happening. That determination made sure he concentrated harder, which in turn helped him play close to his body, and with a soft touch. It was only after batting three full sessions on this treacherous surface that he was dislodged.
Jadeja made one take off like a rocket. It lobbed off the glove and landed safely in Ajinkya Rahane's hands at slip. Karunaratne walked back after handshakes and pats on the back. There really was no shame in losing your wicket to a ball that behaved like the stuff of NASA'S dreams.
Dimuth Karunaratne raises his bat after notching up his sixth Test hundred Associated Press
Such unplayable deliveries were expected of Jadeja the moment he was armed with monstrous scoreboard pressure. But he had to wait 23 overs to make his first strike. He was the man locked in the bathrooms at a going-out-of-business sale.
For the most part, that was because he was bowling quick - which is advisable since it gives the batsman less time to deal with the turn - but on a good length, which meant the edges were beaten a lot more than they were taken. On a normal track, he could have had success quicker. On this one, he couldn't until he went fuller. Eventually, Jadeja found his rhythm - his fitness allows for him to wait as long as needed - and Sri Lanka were done for.
Dinesh Chandimal was nipped at slip. Angelo Mathews was undone by extra bounce and a spectacular catch by Wriddhiman Saha, taken somewhere around his shoulder while standing up to the stumps. Dilruwan Perera premeditated a trip down the track and paid for it. And Dhananjaya de Silva was taken by Rahane behind the wicket as he came forward to take a low chance. India's close-in fielders - barring familiar errors from Virat Kohli - was top class.
And they had to be because Sri Lanka, hurt after folding for 183 in the first innings, were sturdier. Even the nightwatchman Malinda Pushpakumara hung around for 45 minutes this morning. As much as that is a credit to his defensive technique, it also suggested the pitch, in the fourth day had slowed down. Well done, heavy roller.
So India needed to keep their disciplines now more than ever. To force the batsman into feeling the pressure sharper. To feed his doubts and lure out a false shot. Having done so, they will savour this win all the more. And if that doesn't make it special, how about this: India have won all eight of their most recent Test series. One more and they'll equal the world record.
3rd Test Pallekele
Day 1
India 329/6 (90 ov)
Sri Lanka
The first half of the day produced a massive opening partnership, a seventh successive 50-plus score for KL Rahul and a second century of the tour for Shikhar Dhawan. Then, Sri Lanka hit back through their trio of left-armers, the orthodox spin of Malinda Pushpakumara, the unorthodox spin of Lakshan Sandakan, and the swing of Vishwa Fernando.
India scored 188 without loss in the first 39.2 overs of the day, and 141 for 6 in the remaining 50.4. Having won their third toss of the series, they would have taken 329 for 6 at stumps, given the strength of their lower order, and given the amount of turn - albeit slow, for now - this Pallekele pitch is beginning to offer. But, given the position India's openers put them in, Sri Lanka would have ended the day thrilled with their efforts to pull things back.
The first two wickets came from aggressive shots against Pushpakumara, Rahul stepping out and failing to clear mid-on, and Dhawan sweeping hard but uppishly to square leg. Given that opening, Sri Lanka's bowlers ensured the pressure did not let up. Having seemed to go through the motions right through the morning session and for most of the post-lunch session, they suddenly began bowling with purpose.
Pushpakumara, who dropped short far too often at the SSC, bowled much fuller here, attacking the stumps and keeping batsmen guessing with his scrambled-seam delivery. On a day when India went at 3.65 per over, Pushpakumara finished with 3 for 40 from 18 overs. He entered the attack late - in the 40th over of India's innings - but made such an impact that Dilruwan Perera, Sri Lanka's most senior spinner, didn't bowl a single ball after lunch.
Sandakan, meanwhile, forced the batsmen to keep a wary eye on his wrist to pick the variations out of his hand, and in the process, they sometimes misread his variations in trajectory. Cheteshwar Pujara, rocking back to cut one that wasn't short enough, top-edged to slip.
Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane saw out a testing period until tea, and found no release after the interval. Sandakan kept floating the ball above Rahane's eyeline and got it to dip, forcing him to reach for the ball. Fernando, consistently clocking speeds in the high 130s, began finding a hint of reverse, accentuating his angle across the right-handers. He teased Kohli, bowling wide outside his off stump, daring him to drive. Kohli picked off a couple of overpitched balls, and ignored the rest.
Dip undid Rahane and a loose drive undid Kohli, even if the bowler in each case wasn't the one that initiated the respective plans. Rahane, reaching well in front of his body, played across a Pushpakumara ball that didn't turn and also kept slightly low. Kohli, having fought his way to 42, threw his hands at a wide, flighted delivery from Sandakan and nicked to slip.
With 13 balls left in the day, Fernando, armed with the second new ball, belatedly struck. In his 18th over of the day, he slanted one across R Ashwin, pitching just short of a good length. In his previous over, from the other end, he had kept swinging the ball back in. This one just went with the angle; Ashwin poked, and Niroshan Dickwella dived across first slip to grab a stunning one-hander.
The mood of the match was transformed, and the events of the morning seemed to belong to a distant past, although they had ensured India were probably still in the ascendancy.
Those events had occurred at great speed, the openers scoring their runs at 4.75 per over, with Dhawan going at close to a run a ball, capitalising on the smallest sign of width from the quicks and using his feet superbly against spin.
Rahul made his seventh successive 50-plus score in Test matches, becoming the joint record-holder alongside Everton Weekes, Andy Flower, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Kumar Sangakkara and Chris Rogers. As was the case with most of the previous six innings, he looked good for a century before getting himself out, against the run of play.
Batting was expected to be at its easiest on the first day, with the pitch looking dry beneath an even but not extravagant cover of grass. Kohli chose to bat again, and Sri Lanka made life easy for his batsmen by failing to make use of the new ball.
Fernando, pushing close to 90mph and getting some swing, began reasonably well, finding Dhawan's outside edge in his second over, the ball not quite carrying as third slip dived in front of second. Lahiru Kumara, however, leaked runs, pitching persistently short, feeding Dhawan's cut and Rahul's pull.
Kumara went out of the attack after bowling just three overs and conceding 26. In his place came Dimuth Karunaratne, who, having dismissed Pujara in Colombo, now began to trouble Rahul with his wobble and lack of pace. He beat his outside edge once, then clipped it - once again the ball didn't carry to the slip cordon - and then caused an attempted flick to balloon high over mid-on. Kumara, running back and watching the ball over his shoulder, got his hand to the ball on the dive, but couldn't hold on.
That chance, in the 12th over, would be the last of the session. Leading the spin attack in Rangana Herath's absence, Perera wasn't allowed to settle, Dhawan dancing down the track in only his second over to loft him over mid-off. Rattled, the offspinner dropped short a couple of balls later and Dhawan pulled him for another four.
A return to the attack with a slightly older ball made no difference to Kumara's fortunes - he went too full, rather than too short, in his first over back, and both Rahul and Dhawan drove him for fours. By the 20th over, both batsmen had brought up their fifties.
India ended the first session on a dominant note - Rahul cutting and driving Perera for two fours in the last over before lunch - and continued in that vein after the break, with both batsmen finding the cover boundary off Fernando with drives on the up against good-length balls. Then, Dhawan brought out the sweep that had served him so well in Galle, hitting Sandakan square and fine.
Aside from a top-edged cut from Rahul off Sandakan, which flew to the left of Angelo Mathews at slip, there was little sign of a wicket arriving, but the belated introduction of Pushpakumara provoked a mistake from Rahul, a mistake that would have far-reaching consequences.
Day 2
India 487
Sri Lanka 135 & 19/1 (13 ov, f/o)
Sri Lanka trail by 333 runs with 9 wickets remaining
The second day of the Pallekele Test began with Sri Lanka in their most promising position of the series. It ended with them a long way down the forest path towards another massive defeat, with hardly a sliver of sunlight to be seen. Hardik Pandya slipped the blindfold on them, with a brilliantly paced maiden Test hundred that stretched India's first-innings total to 487; Mohammed Shami's new-ball spell applied the machete jab to their backbone, instructing them to keep walking and try no funny stuff; and Sri Lanka themselves walked the rest of the way, a number of their batsmen throwing away their wickets as they slid to 135 all out in only 37.4 overs.
Having secured a 352-run lead, Virat Kohli enforced the follow-on for the second time in successive Tests. It left enough time for India to bowl a further 13 overs, enough time to take one more wicket, Upul Tharanga chopping Umesh Yadav onto his stumps. It was Tharanga's second dismissal in just over four hours. At stumps, Sri Lanka were 19 for 1, needing a further 333 to make India bat again.
Sri Lanka's first-innings largesse allowed Kuldeep Yadav to settle into a menacing rhythm and pick up his second four-wicket haul in only his second Test. He had begun expensively - erring on the full side, usually, or getting swept - as he found himself in the middle of a counterattacking fifth-wicket stand of 63 between Dinesh Chandimal and Niroshan Dickwella.
But Dickwella, taking one risk too many, slogged down the wrong line of a wrong'un after jumping out of his crease, precipitating a slide that cost Sri Lanka their last six wickets for 34 runs. That slide contained numerous signs of a loss of fight from Sri Lanka: Dilruwan Perera slogged one to deep square leg, Chandimal looked to flick one around the corner without taking a proper stride out, Malinda Pushpakumara left a big gap while attempting a drive against the turn.
It was Shami, landing nearly every ball on the seam and making the batsmen play just as often, who set Sri Lanka's batting horrors in motion. He was at peak rhythm right from his first ball, a bouncer that forced Dimuth Karunaratne to duck hurriedly. Bowling around the wicket to the two left-handed openers, he dismissed both with balls that held their line after angling in from wide of the crease. Both balls landed on the perfect length, and in successive overs both Tharanga and Karunaratne had nicked Shami behind, their feet frozen at the crease.
The examination continued against the right-handed pair of Kusal Mendis and Chandimal, with the the latter surviving an lbw appeal, DRS returning an umpire's call verdict on height. The pressure Shami was exerting - utterly suffocating, despite Umesh Yadav straying onto the pads repeatedly at the other end - played some part in the mix-up that cost Sri Lanka their third wicket, and two pieces of excellent fielding from R Ashwin at mid-on and Kuldeep at extra-cover sent back Mendis in the ninth over of their innings. Four balls later, Sri Lanka were 38 for 4, Angelo Mathews lbw to Pandya, pinned on the crease by one that kept a touch low.
In the first two Tests, Pandya had largely been used in a supporting role to relieve the burden on India's four main bowlers. Now, he had come on as first change. This may have had something to do with the innings he had just played.
It was an innings of two distinct halves. Pandya had just reached his half-century when India lost their ninth wicket, some ten minutes before the scheduled lunch break. The interval was duly pushed back by half an hour, and Pandya went on to dominate a tenth-wicket stand of 66, racing from 50 off 61 balls to 108 off 96, with the No. 11 Umesh scoring 3 off 14 in that time.
By the time he was the last man out for 108, in the first over after lunch, Pandya had become the second Indian batsman in the series to score a century in a session, after Shikhar Dhawan on the first day of the first Test in Galle. He was out third ball after resumption, slicing a Lakshan Sandakan googly to the fielder on the cover boundary. Sandakan finished with figures of 5 for 132, his first five-wicket haul, coming in his sixth Test match.
Sri Lanka had begun the second day with the verve and menace with which they had ended the first, Vishwa Fernando finding extra bounce to have Wriddhiman Saha caught at gully in its second over and leave India 339 for 7. Fernando kept testing the batsmen with swing, bounce and a bit of seam, and at one point beat the No. 9 Kuldeep Yadav four times in succession - three times going past the outside edge and once past the inside edge to provoke a loud lbw appeal.
Mohammed Shami got seam movement to dismiss Sri Lanka's openers Associated Press
Having survived that, Kuldeep put his head down and ground out 26 off 73 balls to help add 62 for the eighth wicket with Pandya. That partnership came at 3.17 an over, indicative of how hard Sri Lanka's bowlers made both Kuldeep and Pandya work for their runs. During this phase of his innings, Pandya treated the bowling with respect, keeping an eye out for the odd short ball from the fast bowlers, which he put away with pulls, punches and ramps over the keeper.
Otherwise, he simply took the singles on offer against Sri Lanka's defensive fields. The bowlers and Pandya circled each other warily in this period; they knew of his hitting ability, he knew they knew, and for now he would bide his time.
Then, Sandakan struck twice in three overs, finding Kuldeep's edge with dip and turn after drawing him forward with his flight, and then taking a sharp return catch when Shami drove him hard and straight. It brought the No. 11 to the crease, and provoked a change of approach from Pandya.
By this time, Pushpakumara had bowled four overs in the morning, and his figures read 22-2-56-3. Over the course of his next five balls, Pandya went on to mangle those figures, taking 26 runs off them with the cleanest striking imaginable, all of it executed with the stillest of heads and the smoothest of bat-swings.
He began the over with a flat, slog-swept four, and followed it with a charge down the pitch for a stinging flat-bat hit past the bowler's left hand. Then came three successive straight sixes, one of them clearing the sightscreen and another punching a hole through it. This was the head-on confrontation that the morning had been building towards all along.
Sandakan, varying his pace and keeping batsmen guessing the direction of turn, conceded only three off the next over despite Pandya being on strike through most of it. Then Lahiru Kumara replaced Pushpakumara, pace replacing spin. No matter; Pandya hooked his second ball for six, premeditating by taking guard on off stump and hitting clean and hard. Into the 90s.
Another six in the next over, over midwicket off Sandakan, took him to 97, and the century came up with a straight drive off Kumara - a straight-bat push to the left of a diving mid-on. He had become the fifth Indian to score his maiden first-class hundred in a Test match, after Vijay Manjrekar, Kapil Dev, Ajay Ratra and Harbhajan Singh.
Day 3
India 487
Sri Lanka 135 & 181 (f/o)
India won by an innings and 171 runs
At 2.46 pm on Monday, when Lahiru Kumara played down the wrong line of an R Ashwin carrom ball, India achieved something they had done only once before. Until then, they had only once won three Tests in an away series, back in 1967-68, when they beat New Zealand 3-1.
Now the scoreline was even more impressive, a 3-0 whitewash of Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, each Test won with a fearsome victory margin: 304 runs, an innings and 53 runs, and now, inside three days, an innings and 171 runs. Plenty has and will be said about the lack of quality in Sri Lanka's squad, and plenty of that is true, but India's dominance had just as much to do with their growing into a truly formidable side, with all bases covered, even - in this respect differing from previous Indian sides - on the bowling front.
The last day of the series showcased India's attack at its relentless best, in particular Ashwin and Mohammed Shami, who finished with combined second-innings figures of 43.3-12-100-7 to hasten Sri Lanka's defeat.
After a solitary over from Kuldeep Yadav to start the day, Shami and Ashwin bowled in tandem right through the first hour of day three, setting the tone for a day with no respite for Sri Lanka. Ashwin struck in his first over of the day, removing Dimuth Karunaratne, Sri Lanka's second-innings specialist. Karunaratne might have been fresh off a hundred in the previous Test, but managed to pick neither the line nor length of the second and third balls he faced from Ashwin.
This was one of those days when the ball just comes out perfectly from Ashwin's hand, when batsmen cannot predict with any sense of certainty where it will land. First up, a big offbreak beat Karunaratne's outside edge by a long way, his front foot planted down the wrong line thanks to the drift into him. Then, stuck on the crease to a quicker one that took off from a length, he was caught at slip off the shoulder of his bat.
At the other end, every ball from Shami looked likely to dismiss the nightwatchman Malinda Pushpakumara, with the TV producers lingering on slow-motion replays of his perfectly upright seam. Having beaten him four times with balls that held their line after angling into the fourth-stump channel, Shami finally found his edge through to Wriddhiman Saha in his fourth over of the day.
Kusal Mendis, the other centurion in Sri Lanka's second-innings resistance at the SSC, was jittery at the crease right from the start, getting himself into tangles in the effort to put the bowlers off their rhythm. Predictably, he tried sweeping Ashwin as often as he could, but this time he wasn't as successful in picking up the offspinner's changes of pace and trajectory. On one occasion, he adjusted to the dip, collapsing his back knee and leaning backwards to manufacture room for a swipe through backward square leg. On another, he had to hurriedly change his shot and play a defensive jab into the leg side instead.
Mendis was stuck at Ashwin's end for the first 16 balls of his innings. Finally, facing Shami, he received a rare bad ball - a short, wide one - that he slapped away to the point boundary. The next ball, though, he paid the price for trying to manufacture a scoring opportunity. Spotting his shuffle across the crease, Shami went wide of the crease and fired one in, full and straight. Rod Tucker gave him out as soon as Shami began appealing, penalising his across-the-line shot as much as anything else, with the line suggesting the ball may have carried on past leg stump. Mendis did not review, and ball-tracking returned an umpire's-call verdict.
Chandimal had been the most assured Sri Lankan batsman in the first innings, especially against pace, and a couple of flowing drives through the off side off Umesh Yadav gave the same impression in the second innings too. He was less certain against Ashwin, though, and in one over had two lbw appeals turned down, the ball beating his sweep both times, with his long front-and-across stretch saving him.
Chandimal and Angelo Mathews saw Sri Lanka through to lunch, and for a further 8.2 overs after the interval, putting on 65 for the fifth wicket in 27.4 overs. Having survived those lbw shouts, Chandimal put away the sweep, and began instead to use his feet to the spinners. He didn't always get to the pitch against Ashwin, and a couple of inside edges flew dangerously close of short leg.
A catch at short leg eventually sent Chandimal back, though off Kuldeep rather than Ashwin, turn and bounce cramping him as he went back to flick. Then Mathews, looking to sweep a full ball off the stumps, missed, and Ashwin had his second wicket. He soon had his third too, Dilruwan Perera slogging him to deep midwicket.
With Sri Lanka seven down, the quicks returned to try and finish things quickly. Lakshan Sandakan top-edged a cut off Shami, and then Niroshan Dickwella, who top scored with a typically punchy 41, fell to a stunning reflex catch from Ajinkya Rahane at gully, when he middled an open-faced slash to his left off Umesh. Shami could have had a fourth, when Vishwa Fernando chipped one straight back at him, but the one-handed effort fell to the floor, leaving Ashwin to return and take the last wicket, swelling his series-topping tally to 17.
1st ODI
India 220 for 1 (Dhawan 132*, Kohli 82*) beat Sri Lanka 216 (Dickwella 64, Axar 3-34, Jadhav 2-26) by nine wickets
For half of their innings, Sri Lanka really did look like a side that wanted to bat first, as their captain had said at the toss. For the rest of it, each player was lapping the other back to the pavilion. From 139 for 1 in the 25th over, they careened to 216 all out, collapsing in a heap to the considerable wiles of... Kedar Jadhav. The part-timer - who has previously been brought on as a last resort - was indecipherable... bowling non-turning offbreaks. Considering only weird things were happening in this match, there was a fair shout that India would muck up a straightforward chase. But that's when normal service resumed.
Shikhar Dhawan struck his sixth successive fifty-plus score against Sri Lanka and carried on to score his fastest ODI hundred, off 71 balls. He alone struck more boundaries (23) than the entire opposition (20), pulling merrily, cutting anything he deemed short, and reverse-sweeping if only to feel the rush of a proper contest. He was the bulldozer and Sri Lanka were a helpless, dilapidated old building.
At the other end was Virat Kohli, making 82 fairly soft runs to seal a nine-wicket victory with a whopping 21.1 overs to spare. The only mishap of the innings happened when Rohit Sharma, in his first innings as vice-captain, lost control of his bat and was run out for 4 because both his feet were in the air despite crossing the crease.
As bizarre as that was, little that could compete with the antics of the Sri Lankan batsman. They had looked good to score 300, then promptly lost nine wickets for 77 runs.
Jadhav took out the half-centurion Niroshan Dickwella and the captain Upul Tharanga and faded into the background so his team-mates could have a little fun. Axar Patel took the opportunity and in his first match of the tour picked up 3 for 34 in 10 overs.
That meant a crowd of 14,514 in Dambulla - several wearing fancy dresses, more than a few sporting trumpets, all of them adding to a raucous atmosphere - kept scratching their heads, wondering how on earth fingerspin had become relevant in one-day cricket again.
The Champions Trophy had proven a few things - wickets in the middle overs matter and wristspinners are an excellent source of them. And on Sunday too, the first one that came India's way was the result of a legspinner's work. A well-set Danushka Gunathilaka played a bizarre reverse sweep to the new bowler Yuzvendra Chahal to then be caught at cover. The flabbergasted look of the catcher KL Rahul summed up what a weird moment that was in the game.
Fine, that's only one man down. Sri Lanka still had Dickwella, playing a smart knock, typically moving around in his crease, whipping balls into the leg side like his mother had forbidden him from thinking about a straight drive. For as many as 15 overs, he scored only one run in front of the wicket on the off side. Some of that can be explained by his preference for the leg side. He played a couple of pick-up shots over long-on and midwicket that were jaw-dropping. India's fast bowlers, too, didn't really give him too many balls in his half of the pitch, sensing the new ball wasn't swinging, and immediately resorting to tucking him up or messing up his timing with slower balls.
Having weathered them all with admirable patience, he then fell lbw to a straight ball from Jadhav. It was an anti-climax of epic proportions. Not least because it came as a result of the lap sweep, a shot he plays superbly well, but on this occasion did not account for the quicker delivery. For good measure, he also burned the only review Sri Lanka had in the innings.
Through it all, Jadhav could well have thrown his head and laughed. There is no mystery to him. He simply doesn't give the batsman any pace to work with, and demands them to hit him, hard, if they want boundaries. That happens best with cross-bat shots. But the problem is he also makes balls keep relatively low, especially with his slingy action and that allows him to sneak under the bat swing. None of these nuances were necessary for the wickets he took though. Dickwella played a poor shot and Tharanga sent a high full toss into long-on's hands.
Axar troubled Sri Lanka the other way - with extra pace. He bowled Kusal Mendis, who looked the best of the batsmen, moving his feet decisively and working the field brilliantly, with a ball clocked at 104 kph, one the batsman never saw coming as he charged out of his crease. With the pitch just slow enough, and the boundaries large enough, hitting through the line was not a straightforward option. Axar capitalised on it with his clever changes of pace and steadfast accuracy. Most of his balls were fast, fullish and always at the stumps. He and Jadhav got through 15 overs for 60 runs and four wickets. India then blitzed through the tail, allowing no batsman below Angelo Mathews, at No. 5, to enter double-digits.
On a night when the visitors' second-string spin attack made sure they did not feel the absence of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja - or even Kuldeep Yadav who was their best bowler in the Caribbean last month - not one of the Sri Lanka bowlers could pick up a wicket. It was just that kind of day.
2nd ODI
Sri Lanka 236/8 (50 ov)
India 231/7 (44.2/47 ov, target: 231)
India won by 3 wickets (with 16 balls remaining) (D/L method)
His name is Akila Dananjaya. He is supposed to be an offspinner but his nimble fingers can do what they want to the ball. One minute in 2012, he was bowling in the nets, the next he was fast-tracked into the Sri Lanka team by no less a spotter of talent than Mahela Jayawardene, in a World T20 to boot. If that isn't enough drama, on debut, he struck in his first over, and then got hit in the face by a cricket ball. If his career had ended then, he would still have felt it was a roller-coaster.
Then came August 24, 2017. And even if it ended with victory for India by three wickets, he would never forget this rain-hit night.
Twenty-three-years-old now, a day after getting married, Dananjaya took 6 for 54 and had one of the world's mightiest batting line-ups looking at him like he was a ghost. Virat Kohli was bowled for 4, deceived in the manner he might once have been while playing backyard cricket while still a child. He cast a dumbstruck look at the pitch as he walked off but the demon wasn't there. He was 22 yards away, smiling and whooping and dancing with a bunch of men who had put only 236 runs on the board, but felt they were on their way to defending it.
MS Dhoni watched all of the revelry, typically expressionless. He had more important work to do, like reviving India's chase, yet again.
From 131 for 7, through sheer force of will and fiendish common sense, he marshalled India towards their target. He had advice for those who would listen, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, in the course of a record-breaking eighth-wicket partnership of 100, certainly did. Don't get stuck on the back foot, said the master to his protégé. Stick with him, pleaded all of India as they turned to a familiar hero.
Most of the Dhoni innings that stick in the mind feature brutish strokes and calculated carnage. But with a small target defended by a set of bowlers that were on an almighty roll, a different type of innings was required. One that would fetch 45 runs off 68 deliveries at a strike-rate of 66.17 with only one boundary. He had denied Muttiah Muralitharan in 2011. He did the same to Dananjaya on Thursday.
For one brief moment though, Sri Lanka thought they had glory. In the 35th over, with India 59 runs away, Vishwa Fernando produced a false shot from Dhoni and the ball trickled between his legs to hit the stumps. But the zing bails - heavier than the normal ones - wouldn't fall. And neither would Dhoni. He and Bhuvneshwar brought the target down below 50, with a slog sweep for six. To 30, with back-to-back fours. Under 10, as both the sky and Sri Lanka's hopes faded to black.
It was so that Pallekele, which had gasped and swooned and howled and cried, had to go back home knowing their country had lost playing its 800th ODI. But there might well be a smile on their faces once the wound stops feeling so fresh. At long last, their prayers had been answered. They had found someone who could actually land the ball where an Indian batsman didn't want it.
There had been 329 runs and 44.2 overs between a Sri Lankan bowler taking a wicket on this tour. In the space of 15 balls, Dananjaya had four. By his fifth over, he had a five-for. Where was he all this time? Why hasn't he been playing every match for his country? Why would anyone hide a bowler who, on one of his days, rouses thousands of people up and make them forget woes which had seemed all-consuming only last weekend?
But to do that, Dananjaya had to become a villain to a few people. Like Rohit Sharma, who had, until the 16th over, batted with such ease that he was playing any shot that popped into his mind, like a scoop against the express pace of Dushmantha Chameera. In the blink of an eye, he had scored one-sixth of the 37 runs he had made over his last 10 ODIs on the island. Then he had to face an offspinner. He saw a good length ball pitching on middle and leg and thought it ripe to sweep. After all, it would be turning further down leg. Except, it didn't. It couldn't. It was a legbreak. It spun the other way and pinned the man who dared to make 264 against Sri Lanka right in front. India were 109 for 1 in the 16th over.
Up the order came Kedar Jadhav. He was previously earmarked to be a finisher, but India wanted to experiment in this series. Only Frankenstein would not find the monster he was looking for this night. Dananjaya got back to his mark. He changed his grip; instead of the front two fingers gripping the ball, all of them wrapped around it. And after he trotted up to the crease, he released it from the back of his hand. Jadhav did not see it. But he sure as heck heard it crashing into middle stump.
Proper legspiners would not have the control Dananjaya does. Nor would they have his ripping googly. He got four of his wickets with it - three of them bowled, all of them in the same over. Hardik Pandya handed him his third five-wicket haul in all representative cricket, blindly charging out of his crease to be stumped off an ugly shot.
But such a special spell still ended up on the wrong side of a scorecard because Sri Lanka's batsmen had let him down. Five of the top six faced at least 20 deliveries, and even Upul Tharanga, the man who missed out, got two scintillating boundaries. The pitch held no threat, the bowling wasn't anything more than efficient, a more experienced team might have got through the tough stages to post a monumental total.
Sri Lanka were certainly heading that way after being put in. They were coasting at 70 for 1 in the 14th over, but lurched to 121 for 5 in the 29th, and if it wasn't for Milinda Siriwardana finally unveiling the composure and shot selection expected of an international batsman, who knows what the score might have been? The allrounder made a timely half-century - his third in the format - and lifted Sri Lanka to a total that came within three wickets of being enough.
It wasn't because of two India players who had the gumption to stay at the crease for longer than any of member of their opposition. And one of them was a No. 9, scoring his maiden fifty in ODIs.
3rd ODI
Sri Lanka 217/9
India 218/4
India won by 6 wickets
Sri Lanka's on-field embarrassment became their off-field shame, as a bottle-flinging Pallekele crowd caused a 35-minute disruption before India were allowed to knock off the final eight runs that won them the match and sealed the series. Plastic bottles began to be flung from the two grass embankments during the 44th over. Riot police were eventually required to clear those areas before play could continue.
The incident came at the end of another one-sided match, even if it did have one tense period. For 40 minutes, after the seamers had struck, and Akila Dananjaya was threatening to make a charge, Sri Lanka were in the hunt - India hemmed in at 61 for 4. But as has been the case right through the tour, the visitors needed to only withstand that brief period of pressure. Their batsmen soon broke the siege, and then set about cruising, risk-free, towards the target. Having sewed up the series now, India are free to trial new combinations, or pursue a 5-0 result to go with their whitewash from the Tests.
On Sunday, it was Rohit Sharma who made short work of another modest target, hitting an unbeaten 124 off 145 balls, and forging a 157-run unbeaten fifth-wicket partnership with MS Dhoni in the process. Earlier in the day, it had been Jasprit Bumrah - full, fast and deceptive - who made the greatest dents in Sri Lanka's own innings, claiming 5 for 27 - his first five-wicket haul in internationals. All this added up to another thumping. India sauntered to the target of 218 with six wickets and 4.5 overs to spare. The last seven balls - which were played out after the crowd had been dealt with - were little more than mere formality.
Sri Lanka will rue their batting most - their score seeming perhaps as many as 70 too few - but when their bowlers began with a little menace, they inspired a little hope. Lasith Malinga got a short ball to dart back into Shikhar Dhawan - the ball rebounding off the under-edge into the stumps. Three overs later, Vishwa Fernando had Virat Kohli out by a diving Dushmantha Chameera at long leg. When Dananjaya removed KL Rahul and Kedar Jadav in his first seven balls, Sri Lanka were ascendant; India in danger of suffering another big middle-order collapse.
But at the crease was Dhoni - the master defuser - who picked Dananjaya's variations perfectly, and Rohit, who appeared almost as assured. There was a period of 32 balls that cost two wickets and brought only 11 runs, but soon enough, the tough times ended. Rohit slapped Chameera for three consecutive leg-side boundaries in the 19th over. After that, even Dananjaya didn't seem so much of a threat.
The pair collected canny runs into the outfield, reserved their big strokes only for the bad balls for the most part, and it was not until after the 35th over that Rohit's effortless boundary-hitting made an appearance. He reached his century - his 12th in ODIs - off the 118th delivery he faced, and struck 16 fours and two sixes in all. Dhoni progressed to an unbeaten and unflustered 67 off 86 balls. He was even seen sleeping near the pitch while the authorities tried to calm fans down during the delay towards the end of the match.
In their own innings, Sri Lanka coughed, spluttered, tripped and stumbled their way through 50 overs, and like a two-stroke trishaw trying to scale a Kandy hillside, at no stage were they able to build momentum. Their progress was forever frustrated by another indiscreet stroke, and the latest misjudgement of line and length. Only Lahiru Thirimanne managed to rise above mediocrity, hitting 80 off 105 balls, relying largely on placement and field manipulation over ambitious stroke-making or power. That he seemed the top order's most natural accumulator of runs was an indictment on his team-mates: this was Thirimanne's first ODI innings since January 2016.
While Bumrah's lines and lengths were often good, the menace in his bowling was enhanced by his mixing of pace. His first wicket, in fact, had come under somewhat strange circumstances. Niroshan Dickwella missed a full, straight delivery in the fourth over, and was adjudged lbw, only for the ball to have been proved to pitch outside the leg stump when the batsman reviewed. Three balls later, Bumrah pitched another full ball on the stumps, Dickwella missed again, and though given not out initially, India overturned that decision with a review of their own.
Kusal Mendis soon edged Bumrah to a diving Rohit at second slip. The two-stroke trishaw had backfired twice in quick succession, and though Dinesh Chandimal would join Thirimanne for a third-wicket stand worth 72, no one else could muster a partnership. Towards the end of the innings, Bumrah bowled Dananjaya and Milinda Siriwardana in successive overs, as both batsmen attempted to play aggressive strokes. In between, he had had Thirimanne caught at short cover.
4th ODI
India 375/5 (50 ov)
Sri Lanka 207 (42.4/50 ov)
India won by 168 runs
The last time Virat Kohli had elected to bat after winning an ODI toss, Rohit Sharma made an unbeaten 264 in an India total of 404.
Now, against the same opponents, it seemed as if Kohli and Rohit were on course to become the first pair of batsmen to score double-hundreds in the same ODI. By the end of the 29th over, they had put on 219 in 165 balls. Kohli was batting on 131 off 93 balls, Rohit on 86 off 75. On a hard, flat Premadasa Stadium pitch bounded by one of the quickest outfields anywhere, India were 225 for 1 and the record ODI total of 444 seemed under serious threat.
In the end, India only got as far as 375. Kohli's 30th-over dismissal, which gave Lasith Malinga his 300th ODI wicket, sparked a slump that saw India lose four wickets for the addition of only 49 runs, in 49 balls. Without a whole lot of batting to follow, MS Dhoni and Manish Pandey had to ration their risk-taking somewhat in an unbroken sixth-wicket stand of 101 off 77 balls. And so, instead of a world-record chase, Sri Lanka were left merely the task of bettering their own highest successful chase. By 52 runs.
In the end, they never even threatened to get close, eventually folding for 207 in the 43rd over of their chase and slumping to their biggest defeat - by a runs margin - in a home ODI. The target was a speck that grew smaller and more distant with each over, and regular wickets meant Sri Lanka never got enough of a foothold to even think of going for it. Apart from Angelo Mathews, who made 70, and Milinda Siriwardana, who scored a punchy 39, no one got past 30 as Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya and Kuldeep Yadav finished with two wickets apiece.
Kohli based his decision to bat - it was only the second time he had done so, having won 16 tosses - on letting his bowlers and fielders put their feet up in the heat and humidity of the Colombo afternoon. Given those conditions, and the utter lack of help from the pitch for both seam and spin, Sri Lanka looked like they were serving a sentence during the first 29.2 overs of the Indian innings.
Their only moment of joy, in that time, came in the second over, when Shikhar Dhawan sliced Vishwa Fernando straight to third man. Given the form he was in, he would have rued that shot as he settled in the dressing room and watched Kohli and Rohit dominate the bowling.
Kohli set off in a blaze of boundaries, hitting three successive fours off Fernando, off only the ninth, tenth and eleventh balls of his innings. None of the three balls were half-volleys. He drove the first ball to the cover boundary, on the up. The next two, near-identical balls closer to off stump, went past mid-off and midwicket. It took him only 23 balls to get to 30, with six fours, all either driven or flicked.
At that point, Rohit was batting on 3 off 7. A lofted drive over extra-cover, off Mathews, moved the opener into his stride, and from there on, no matter who the bowler was, both batsmen did as they pleased. There were two mix-ups early in the partnership, with Kohli at the danger end on both occasions, and a run-out seemed the likeliest way, by far, for Sri Lanka to break it.
After the first Powerplay, Rohit and Kohli turned on a steady stream of ones and twos, and manufactured a boundary every now and then to keep the run rate rattling along at well above seven an over. A bottom-handed whip from Kohli enabled him to hit Siriwardana against the turn and bisect long-on and deep midwicket. A deliberate, open-faced slice from Rohit sent the ball curling past the diving backward point fielder. Given the speed of the outfield, anything that beat a fielder on the circle left the boundary-rider no chance.
By the 25th over, Kohli had already raced to his hundred, off just 76 balls, reaching the landmark with a whippy pick-up shot off Siriwardana. His next 19 balls brought him 31 runs, and he seemed unstoppable when he fell to one of the most innocuous balls he faced all day, a wide, full ball from Malinga that he slapped straight to sweeper cover.
A total of at least 400 still seemed a formality, though, with Rohit reaching his hundred in the 34th over and Pandya, promoted to No. 4, clattering Akila Dananjaya for a couple of early lofted boundaries. But Mathews, carrying his injury-ravaged body creakily to the crease and delivering two short balls, dismissed both off successive balls, Pandya picking out the deep fielder with a pull and Rohit cramped for room while trying to ramp him over the keeper. When KL Rahul failed to keep a flick down off Dananjaya in the 38th over, Sri Lanka had done as much damage limitation as they could have hoped for. From there on, India's dominance would resume unabated.
5th ODI
Sri Lanka 238 (49.4/50 ov)
India 239/4 (46.3/50 ov)
India won by 6 wickets (with 21 balls remaining)
Bhuvneshwar Kumar's maiden five-wicket haul in ODIs and Virat Kohli's 30th hundred in the format led India to a clinical six-wicket win that consigned Sri Lanka to a first ever home-series whitewash. There was a sense of inevitability to it all, particularly to Kohli's innings, which swept him past 1000 runs for 2017 and moved him level with Ricky Ponting in second place among ODI century-makers.
Ponting batted 365 times in ODIs while scoring 30 hundreds; Kohli reached the mark in his 186th innings. It was his 19th hundred in a chase, though perhaps one of the least challenging among them. India were only chasing 239.
They were only chasing 239 because Sri Lanka failed to build on their first century stand of the series - 122 for the fourth wicket between Lahiru Thirimanne and Angelo Mathews. Had they done so, they may have set a target of around 270. Instead, they lost their last seven wickets for 53 runs.
Having left out Hardik Pandya for the first time in 18 ODIs, India chose an extra specialist bowler in his stead. All of them enjoyed a productive afternoon on a slow, used surface barring Shardul Thakur, who went for 38 in a four-over new ball spell and only bowled two more overs.
All that meant India did not have too much of a target between them and a 5-0 whitewash, but they had to chase it down without a genuine allrounder at No. 7, and in less-than-perfect batting conditions. They had scored 375 on the same pitch on Thursday, but it had now morphed into a drier, grippier creature where driving on the up wasn't a straightforward proposition.
They lost both their openers by the eighth over, Ajinkya Rahane top-edging a hook off a sharp, steep bouncer that was a flashback to Lasith Malinga at his prime, and Rohit Sharma failing to get the elevation he desired while looking to scoop Vishwa Fernando over short fine leg. India were 29 for 2, but they happened to have Kohli at the crease in the kind of limited-overs form few batsmen have ever experienced.
Kohli walked to the crease having scored 907 ODI runs in 2017, at an average of 82.45 and a strike rate of 103.65, and every now and then played a shot of a man with those numbers behind him: an exquisitely delayed jab between backward point and short third man, a flat-bat swat to beat long-on to his left and every now and then, one of his pet cover drives.
But the innings, like a lot of his ODI innings, was more about the things he did in between the eye-catching shots. Where he faced 116 balls and only hit nine fours, Kedar Jadhav hit seven in 73, but he only played out 49 dot balls to Jadhav's 40. They're just different players, and their styles melded beautifully in a fourth-wicket stand of 109, but Kohli's method, which he has honed into an endlessly repeatable template, is the backbone of his consistency.
Without Pandya in the line-up, the onus was on Manish Pandey and Jadhav to deliver, and both did, in their respective ways. Pandey, almost all bottom-hand, top-edged a sweep on 36 after partnering Kohli in a third-wicket stand of 99, the two soaking up a period of pressure exerted by Akila Dananjaya and Malinda Pushpakumara, who both got the odd ball to turn sharply. Then Jadhav came in and shut the door on Sri Lanka with a breezy 63 full of sweeps and pulls, before top-edging an attempted late-cut when India only needed two more to win.
Having won the toss upon his return from a two-match over-rate suspension, Upul Tharanga proceeded to belie the slowness of the pitch, using his gifts of eye and timing to clatter nine fours in a 34-ball 48. Thakur, only playing his second ODI, bore the brunt of his punishment, pitching too full in the search for swing and occasionally dropping short as well.
In that time, however, Niroshan Dickwella and Dilshan Munaweera fell cheaply at the other end, both batsmen driving too early at Bhuvneshwar's knuckle ball. Bhuvneshwar's control and changes of pace kept Sri Lanka from running away against the new ball, and India were right on top when Jasprit Bumrah got one to nip away from Tharanga off the seam to have him caught behind in the 10th over.
Sri Lanka, however, were going at over a run-a-ball at that point, thanks to Tharanga's innings, and that early momentum allowed Thirimanne and Mathews the time to play themselves in. Virat Kohli introduced spin early, bringing Kuldeep Yadav on in the 11th over, partnering him with Jadhav in the 18th, and calling up Yuzvendra Chahal in the 22nd.
Between them, the three spinners went on to bowl 24 overs and conceded only five boundaries between them while picking up two wickets. Driving and lofting were tricky propositions on this pitch, and Thirimanne and Mathews did not - and could not, given the situation Sri Lanka were in - take too many risks. But they put their experience to use, and swept, nurdled and check-drove their team towards a platform to launch a late assault from.
Both had brought up their fifties when Bhuvneshwar returned to bowl the 39th over with Sri Lanka 181 for 3. He struck immediately, going around the wicket to cramp Thirimanne and forcing him to play on while trying to guide one to third man. Then Kuldeep, returning to the attack in the 42nd over, took out Mathews with the first ball of his new spell, sending down a wrong'un that caught the leading edge of an attempted lap-sweep.
At the crease were two batsmen with 5 and 0 against their names, and Sri Lanka had it all to do, all over again. The inexperience of their lower order came under the spotlight, and they duly crumbled. Wanindu Hasaranga fell to a self-inflicted run-out, Akila Dananjaya stepped out and missed the line of a topspinner, leaving MS Dhoni to complete his 100th ODI stumping, and both Milinda Siriwardana and Malinda Pushpakumara fell to full-tosses from the fast bowlers. Then Lasith Malinga holed out to Bhuvneshwar, and Sri Lanka had folded two balls short of lasting 50 overs.
Only T20I
Sri Lanka 170/7 (20 ov)
India 174/3 (19.2/20 ov)
India won by 7 wickets (with 4 balls remaining)
Three-nil in the Tests, five-nil in the ODIs, a crushing seven-wicket win in the one-off T20I. Virat Kohli followed up successive hundreds in the last two ODIs with another display of ruthless efficiency in a chase, and ensured India left Sri Lanka no crumbs of comfort at the end of a long and chastening month and a half of one-sided contests.
Set 171 to win, India romped home with four balls remaining and Manish Pandey making his third important contribution in a row, following up 50* and 36 in the last two ODIs with his maiden T20I fifty.
Kohli, the only batsman with 1000 T20I runs and a 50-plus average, ended his tour with 82 off 54 balls, an innings that oozed arrogance. It was present in the shots he played - an umpire-endangering blast down the ground and a bottom-handed whip through midwicket, both off Lasith Malinga, standing out among his seven fours and a six - but especially in the way he admonished himself, bat slapping pad in annoyance, for little moments of imprecision: for putting too much weight on a clip down the ground and ending up with a single rather than two, for placing a front-foot slap a few inches closer to the extra-cover fielder than he would have liked and ending up with a single rather than four. It was as if the opposition did not matter.
Until he miscued a leg-side whip and holed out with India just 10 away from their target, it was easy to miss the assured hand played by Pandey in a 119-run partnership for the third wicket. He came in with India not entirely secure; they had lost both openers by the end of the sixth over, and Kohli not yet fully settled, having just been beaten twice in a row by Malinga's seam and Isuru Udana's left-arm angle. But Pandey promptly calmed any nerves in the dressing room, turning the strike over with dabs and pushes either side of point, and switching gears with a straight six and a fierce, airborne cut in the 12th over, off Angelo Mathews.
With Kohli also blazing five fours and a six in that period, India sped from 47 for 2 after seven overs to 118 for 2 after 13. Four of those six overs were either Mathews' medium-pace in conditions with no swing or seam or Seekkuge Prasanna's quickish and not particularly ripping legspin, showing the lack of genuine wicket threat from Sri Lanka in the middle overs.
The story was rather different when Sri Lanka batted. Sent in after a 40-minute rain delay, their batsmen, Dilshan Munaweera in particular, seemed liberated by the switch to the shortest format as they sped to 60 for 2 in their first six overs. They finished well too, scoring 52 for 1 in the last five, with Ashan Priyanjan turning around a slow start and Udana clubbing the quicks powerfully down the ground.
They faltered in between, though, losing four wickets in those nine overs while scoring at under six-and-a-half per over.
For India, the middle overs illuminated the value of playing two wristspinners. Kuldeep Yadav only conceded 11 in his three overs in that period, and bowled Munaweera with a quick skidder, the batsman sending his bat flying in the direction of square leg in a sweaty-gloved attempt at a pull.
Yuzvendra Chahal gave away 13 in his one Powerplay over, Munaweera greeting him with successive sixes, over extra-cover and down the ground. He continued to go for runs in the middle overs, with Munaweera launching him for two more sixes in his third over and Thisara Perera pummeling him over long-on in his fourth. But he picked up three key middle-overs wickets: Mathews stumped while reaching out to a big legbreak and overbalancing; Perera bowled trying to cut one that cramped him for room; Dasun Shanaka lbw playing outside the line of a wrong'un.
And so, despite conceding 43, Chahal probably bowled the crucial spell for India to keep Sri Lanka in check. Kohli and Pandey did the rest.
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