1st Test, India tour of Sri Lanka at Galle, Jul 26-Jul 29, 2017
Galle: India beat Sri Lanka by 304 runs in the 1st Test match of the series. With skipper Virat Kohli hitting his 17th Test hundred provided resistance in the 2nd innings of the test match. India Taking revenge from the hosts as 2 years back India tasted the defeat on the same venue of the opening test.
The test match lasted for only 4 days; this was India’s largest overseas victory in terms of runs improving their previous best of 279 run-victories against England at Leeds in 1986. For Sri Lanka, it was their biggest crush in terms of runs, go beyond their 301-run loss against Pakistan in 1994.
For Sri Lanka it was only Dimuth Karunaratne who showed some fighting spirit and made hard fought 97 runs but did not get support from other end and Sri Lanka kept loosing wickets on regular intervals. With Niroshan Dickwella making 67 runs and Sri Lanka 192/4 at tea brake it looked that test match will go to final day but sudden collapse and Ashwin picked 3 wickets rattling Sri Lanka middle order and Jadeja also picked another wicket adding to his tally to 3 and Sri Lanka were 245/8.
Earlier, India declared their second innings at 240/3 on Day 4 of the 1st Test on Saturday, soon after Virat Kohli brought up his 17th Test ton, to set 550-run target for hosts Sri Lanka.
It was a governing presentation by the visitors. Opting to bat first, the Indian team was given a good start by Shikhar Dhawan who scored 190 runs of just 168 balls on his Test come back. He along with Cheteshwar Pujara (153) added 253 runs for the second wicket in the first innings guiding India to a massive total of 600 runs. Hardik Pandya who made his Test debut was also remarkable and scored a briskly to reach his half-century.
The disastrous for Sri Lanka was that Asela Gunaratne, who fractured his thumb while trying to catch Shikhar Dhawan in slips in the first innings was ruled out of the series, and stand-in captain Rangana Herath, who suffered a hand injury on Friday, did not bat for Sri Lanka in the second innings.
Brief Score:
- India 600 (Shikhar Dhawan 190, Cheteshwar Pujara 153, Ajinkya Rahane 57; Nuwan Pradeep 6/132, Lahiru Kumara 3/131) & 240/3 decl. (Virat Kohli 103*, Abhinav Mukund 81; Danushka Gunathilaka 1/16)
- Sri Lanka 291 (Dilruwan Perera 92*, Angelo Mathews 83; Ravindra Jadeja 3/67, Mohammed Shami 2/45) & 245 (Dimuth Karunaratne 97, Niroshan Dickwella 67; Ravichandran Ashwin 3/65, Ravindra Jadeja 3/71) by 304 runs
