India skipper blasts his sixth double ton in Tests as home crowd can't ask for more; Lankans endure yet another poor day
Virat Kohli struck a sixth double ton, before going on to register his individual best of 243 to consolidate India's dominance over Sri Lanka here at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi. While there was nothing unprecedented about the quality of Kohli's second successive double hundred, the same couldn't be said about the quality of air in Delhi, which was the focal point of interest and concern for a large part of the Sunday afternoon. Having declared at a commanding 536 for seven, India tightened their grip on the match, through hostile opening bursts from Mohammed Shami and Ishant Sharma. Shami struck first ball, as he had opener Dimuth Karunaratne caught behind to Wriddhiman Saha. Ishant then trapped Dhananjaya de Silva leg before-wicket for one, to leave Sri Lanka tottering at 14 for two.
Virat Kohli
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However, a fighting half-century from Angelo Mathews, a fluent 42 from make-shift opener Dilruwan Perera and an unbeaten 25 by captain Dinesh Chandimal steered Sri Lanka to relative safety, as they went to stumps at 131 for three, but still requiring 206 more runs to avoid the follow-on. Meanwhile, bowling coach B Arun waxed eloquent on the skipper: "His absolute focus is one thing and attention to detail is the key. In terms of fitness and game preparation, he is spot on. He is an example of what you need to be as a cricketer." Arun added that he would not call the declaration totally forced as they were pretty close to their target score of 550. "We were looking at a total of 550. It was pretty close to that. So we thought we might as well declare," the bowling coach said. This is India's last Test match at home before travelling to South Africa for an all-important Test series in 2018.
With inputs from PTI
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