The task of taking six wickets was rather straightforward for India, but they were made to wait by a resilient Sonal Dinusha, who made a well-crafted 84. His 95-run partnership with Dhananjaya de Silva kept Sri Lanka in the game, but they couldn’t deny the inevitable. Manav Suthar engineered the collapse after lunch to complete his six-wicket haul and round off a resounding 165-run win for India in Galle.
Ravindra Jadeja looked the most threatening bowler against De Silva and Sonal. De Silva was finding it difficult to counter Jadeja and eventually top-edged while attempting a sweep.
Prasidh Krishna was introduced late into the attack and immediately got the wicket of Niroshan Dickwella. The keeper-batter tried to manufacture a shot out of nowhere and threw his wicket away. Ever since Dickwella arrived, Yashasvi Jaiswal was seen talking to him, tempting him to do something out of the ordinary, which he did and paid the price.
Post-lunch, Manav denied Sonal a century. With the next ball, he dismissed Prabath Jayasuriya. The young left-arm spinner couldn’t complete a hat-trick but knocked over Lahiru Kumara in the same over. Clearly, there was a change in plans for Manav. In the first session, he had looked rather flat. Against Sonal, he opted for a leg slip and kept it tight on the stumps to trap him.
For India, the match was set up by the partnerships between Devdutt Padikkal and KL Rahul: a 162-run partnership in the first innings and a 65-run partnership in the second. Test cricket is about building partnerships and batting for long periods, and the two Karnataka batters enjoyed their time together in the middle.
Having played a lot of cricket together for Karnataka, there is an understanding between the two. They complement each other well, and it was evident in the way they batted. Their camaraderie was so good that Rahul was seen hugging Padikkal after Padikkal prompted him to take a successful review. These two bat in the top order and have a very big role to play if India are to play the WTC final at The Oval.
Manav was once again brilliant with the ball and is slowly becoming India’s most bankable spinner.
Kuldeep Yadav bowled the same number of overs as Prasidh Krishna in the first innings. The bulk of the bowling was done by Jadeja and Suthar. Among all the spinners who took part in this game, Kuldeep bagged the fewest wickets.
Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal not scoring runs would be the only low point for India in what was otherwise a good match overall.
Brief Scores: India 462 and 193 beat Sri Lanka 284 and 206 (Dinusha 84; Suthar 6/55) by 165 runs.
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