India tour of Sri Lanka 2015: India on top despite Mathews ton

Tags: India tour of Sri Lanka 2015, Sri Lanka vs India 2nd Test at Colombo, Aug 20-24, 2015, India, Sri Lanka, Angelo Davis Mathews, Hettige Don Rumesh Lahiru Thirimanne, Amit Mishra, Ravichandran Ashwin

Published on: Aug 23, 2015

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Indian bowlers have brought India back into the game after Angelo Mathews century. Amit Mishra took four wickets to bowl out Sri Lanka for 306 runs and took important 87-runs first inning lead.

Indian bowlers have brought India back into the game after Angelo Mathews century. Amit Mishra took four wickets to bowl out Sri Lanka for 306 runs and took important 87-runs first inning lead.

For Sri Lanka, Angelo Mathews scored a magnificent century and he was well supported by Lahiru Thirimane. When Sri Lanka resumed there inning on day 3, Mathews seemed to be in good touch but Thirimane was struggling to rotate the strike. But as the inning progressed and batsmen spent time at the crease, both batsmen found their feet and scored runs at brisk in the first session without taking any risk. Thirimane found few boundaries off Ashwin’s short deliveries and it gave him confidence. On the other hand, Mathews had no any difficulty in rotating the strike. Indian skipper Virat Kohli persisted with the in and out field which allowed the batsmen to take easy singles and twos without doing too much. India tried all five bowlers in first session but none of them were able to take wicket and Sri Lanka scored 84 runs in that session without any loss.

In the post lunch session, the 127-runs partnership between Mathews and Thirimane was broken when Ishant found the edge of Thirimane (62) and Saha caught it easily. This wicket opened the gate for the Indians and from there on they kept on chipping on with wickets at regular interval. Last match hero, Dinesh Chandimal couldn’t do much and departed without any significant contribution. Chandimal was caught by KL Rahul at second slip off Ishant for 11. Mathews are accounted by Binny just after his century. From then on it was too easy for India. Amit Mishra wrapped up the lower order very quickly. Mishra took the wickets of Mubarak, Dhammika Prasad and T Kaushal on day 3. He was pick of the bowler for India with 4-wickets. Ashwin and Ishant took two wickets each. Umesh Yadav and Binny got one scalp and Sri Lanka were bowled out for 306 runs in their first inning.

The start of India in their second inning was not too different from the first inning. Lokesh Rahul was bowled by Dhammika Prasad on fifth ball of the inning for just 2 runs. Vijay and Rahane batted cautiously to make sure that India not lost any other wicket on day 3. At the close of day 3, India had scored 70 runs at loss of Rahul’s wicket.

It’s clear that India have a upper hand on this match now but its still to see whether they can dictate terms from here on or not. How many overs Virat Kohli thinks will be enough to bowl out Sri Lanka in the second inning is the matter of concern and batsmen will apporach their inning according to that only.

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