The change of captain did not have any impact on the result of the game but the home side showed grit to delay the loss and frustrated the Indian boys as well. On day three of the Test match, when the home side lost eight wickets in the first session of the day, it looked like the afternoon session might turn to be the last one after Indian skipper Virat Kohli did not enforce the follow on, courtesy a lead of more than 400 runs.
Sri Lanka lost an early wicket on a score of seven and the dream of winning the game there and then arose at that time but then started tough times for Indian bowlers. The home batsmen had learnt from the mistakes they committed in the first innings and applied themselves to the best to counter the Indian spin.
The scores, in the end, says it all as they made a total of 386 runs, which no one expected from them. Young Kusal Mendis and opener Dimuth Karunaratne batted with utmost sincerity to do their best and one can say that it was probably the best performance by Sri Lankan team in totality.
Though they were never in contention to win the game, a clear message was sent that taking them so lightly can be a foolish thing to do.
In all, the skipper Dinesh Chandimal would be quite pleased with this win as it was sort of a win for the home side to stand against the deadly spin of Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin. The batsmen were collecting easy runs against them on day three. The result was pre-decided but the script though was altered in between.
In short, the Lankan team would love to carry their form of the second innings to the next game in order to send out a message for the visitors.
Dinesh Chandiamal, the captain of Sri Lanka, the ended on the losing side but he had a word of praise for his team regarding their performance in the third innings of the game. Here is what Chandimal said after the end of second Test match –
“To be honest, you can’t control the toss. We were outplayed in the first innings, with the bat and ball. Credit to them. But really happy with the way the guys played in the second innings. We want to take positives out of this game. Yeah, you can tell now (that we could have played two fast bowlers). Unfortunately, Angelo doesn’t bowl at the moment, so we cannot get the right balance. He’s (Asela Gunaratne) been consistent in the last one and a half years. Hoping someone else will take the opportunity.”