Test cricket has often seemed to happen on fast-forward recently. Sometimes, teams even prefer to make games a shootout designed to end as quickly as possible.
It is in sharp contrast to the relish with which Sonal Dinusha and the Sri Lankan lower-order put time back into the game with their valiant final-day effort to drag Sri Lanka to a creditable draw in the second Test in Colombo. With each ball blocked, swept, or left alone, their hunger to spend just a little more time in the middle added up until there was no scope for an outright result.
Shubman Gill and Co. will thus return across the Indian Ocean with a creditable, hard-fought 1-0 series win, but with the lingering thought of what could have been in the second Test.
The answers to many of their questions can probably be found by taking one look up and one look down while they are still on the ground at the Sinhalese Sports Club Ground. The intermittent bouts of inclement weather took plenty of time out of the game, while India chased wickets on a pitch that seemed to offer more support to the batters over the final days.
READ | Gill defends follow-on decision after draw with Sri Lanka
“Honestly, nothing. We were on the field for so many overs over three days, we did everything we could, but they played really well,” said Gill after the game when asked what India could have done differently. “Their batters showed a lot of skill and had a little bit of luck as well.”
While the sight of India’s bowlers attempting to break through a brick wall on the final day may be what lives on in the memory, it would do well to remember the impressive performances that brought India to the cusp of victory in the first place through the third and fourth days.
After bagging 10 wickets in the Galle Test, left-arm spinner Manav Suthar added six more scalps to his tally in Colombo.
| Photo Credit:
PTI
After bagging 10 wickets in the Galle Test, left-arm spinner Manav Suthar added six more scalps to his tally in Colombo.
| Photo Credit:
PTI
Manav Suthar burnished his rapidly growing reputation with six more wickets across the match and left his captain saying that he was ”going to be a very crucial bowler” for India. Once again, he often seemed India’s most threatening weapon with the ball, and though his effectiveness waned on the final day, he managed to provide the breakthroughs on the prior two days.
Also impressive was Prasidh Krishna, who used his height and bounce to good effect to make crucial inroads into the Sri Lankan top order (all four of his wickets were top-five batters).
The final-day struggle will, however, inevitably yield questions about the rest of India’s attack. Off-spinner Saransh Jain, brought in for the unwell Kuldeep Yadav, produced an uneven performance and was not able to trouble the left-handers in Dinusha, Kamindu Mendis, and Lahiru Kumara, while there is some question over whether Ravindra Jadeja and Suthar offer rather similar threats.
Off-spinner Saransh Jain, brought in for the unwell Kuldeep Yadav, produced an uneven performance and was not able to trouble the left-handers
| Photo Credit:
AP
Off-spinner Saransh Jain, brought in for the unwell Kuldeep Yadav, produced an uneven performance and was not able to trouble the left-handers
| Photo Credit:
AP
With a home Border-Gavaskar Trophy right around the corner, the time is fast approaching for India to nail down the composition of its spin attack.
Jadeja and Saransh also shared a proclivity for overstepping the popping crease. Between them, they bowled 11 no-balls across the match, a habit that did not cost them a wicket in this game, but one they will want to tidy up quickly.
For all of its struggles with the ball, there were once again plenty of positives with the bat for India.
If Devdutt Padikkal’s 167 in the first Test in Galle had flagged off the race for the number three slot with B. Sai Sudharsan, his 117 in the second perhaps pushed him into the lead.
Where Galle was a flowing innings replete with left-handed elegance and attractive shot-making, Colombo proved to be more of a grind as his strike-rate dropped from 72.60 to 60.62.
India’s Devdutt Padikkal won the ‘Player of the Series’ award for his total of 328 runs in three innings during the Sri Lanka tour.
| Photo Credit:
PTI
India’s Devdutt Padikkal won the ‘Player of the Series’ award for his total of 328 runs in three innings during the Sri Lanka tour.
| Photo Credit:
PTI
Having been dropped on 0 and 1, the southpaw was content to grit it out for much of his innings on a wicket that proved to be far less conducive to rapid scoring. Once again, his ability to manufacture scoring opportunities off the back foot came to the fore as he served as the backbone of India’s lone batting effort, and he leaves this tour as Player of the Series.
Another happy headache for the team management came in the middle order. Coming into the series, there were murmurs about just how secure Dhruv Jurel and Rishabh Pant’s spots in the team actually were, but both answered those questions in their own inimitable styles.
Pant was forced to retire hurt on three when he was hit by a Kumara bouncer on the wrist, but returned to produce another remarkable innings of 63. He opted to wear a few short balls from the quicks on the body, but proved effective at disrupting the lengths of spinners Keshara Nuwantha and Prabath Jayasuriya yet again.
One can wonder if he left a few runs out on the ground when he holed out first ball after lunch on Day 2 to end their 112-run stand, but his dismissal was Jurel’s cue to take over. The 25-year-old was more conventional than Pant, opting to accumulate more steadily, but his textbook technique and calm demeanour came to the fore as he batted with the lower order to raise his second Test century.
Indeed, he added 56 of his 115 after Pant had fallen, looking largely invincible with the exception of a tense spell on 99.
Between Jurel, Pant, a waiting Sarfaraz Khan, and potentially the slighted one out of Sai Sudharsan and Padikkal, it presents India with a useful problem of plenty in the middle order.
This draw means that India has missed out on crucial WTC points, and Gill’s decision to enforce the follow-on on the fourth evening will thus come under the scanner. But to criticise that decision would be to judge it on the result alone, not the process.
While the result will ultimately reflect a decision that did not work out, there was a fair logic to the call. With the pitch progressively flattening out and the threat of rain perpetually around the corner, India’s best chance of victory was to bowl Sri Lanka out as quickly as possible and hope to chase the excess on a pitch where batting was easing up.
Instead, it found its path to victory blocked by an immovable object in Dinusha, whose determination and application proved enough to take an outright victory just beyond India’s grasp.
Published on Aug 27, 2026
