DRAW WORTH A VICTORY..

'Smog' was the 'showstopper' for a little while in what turned out to be a pretty good match dominated by India for the best part of four days. India lost a couple of wickets early after winning the toss and electing to bat first. Virat Kohli walked in at no. 4 and another meal of a delicious breakfast was presented on a platter in front of him for the next 4 sessions. In what might be his most effortless double ton, Virat smashed Sri Lankan bowlers to every part of Feroz Shah Kotla. Murali Vijay also helped himself to another century against a helpless bowling attack. After a little drama regarding the whether conditions, Kohli decided to declare the innings with score well beyond 500. Shami got the very first ball to climb off the length to get an outside edge of Dimuth Karunaratne's bat which carried easily to Wriddhiman Saha. A huge partnership was to be followed between skipper Dinesh Chandimal and former skipper Angelo Matthews after the fall of a couple of wickets. Both Chandimal and Matthews scored centuries to take Sri Lanka to 373 conceding India a first innings lead of 173. India needed quick runs in the pursuit of second declaration of the match but they couldn't quite get off to a desired start. Another failure by Ajinkya Rahane who was promoted to no. 3 meant that India were two down with not many on the board. Pujara scored a brisk 49 before Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma notched up half centuries to set Sri Lanka 432 runs to win with a little over 3 sessions to go. Start wasn't an ideal one for Sri Lanka as Ravindra Jadeja ran through the top order to have them three down at the end of fourth day's play. Matthews went cheaply on the fifth morning and it all looked set to be finished within a couple of hours. But a stern resilience from Dinesh Chandimal who was out off a no ball from Jadeja and young Dhananjaya de Silva frustrated India untill Ashwin went through the defence of Sri Lankan skipper. Roshen Silva joined Dhananjaya de Silva and they put on another big partnership to take Sri Lanka to a position from where they could smell a draw. After notching up his 3rd century, Dhananjaya de Silva retired out to make way for Niroshan Dickwella who looked as freeflowing as he does in any other situation. Pressure doesn't get to Dickwella and that's the best part of his freeflowing strokes. Both of them batted till about half an hour was remaining in the day's play when Virat Kohli decided to shake hands. This draw is as big as a victory for Sri Lanka because there was so much talk about India and their dominance over Sri Lanka. Now Sri Lanka have some players at least in top six who can ask others to build a team around them. They have shown that if conditions are in their favour then they can be competitive. On the other hand, Virat Kohli said in the press match presentation that he was happy with batting and bowling; not so with the fielding especially the slip cordon. That is absolutely vital going into the South Africa series because India can not afford to go to South Africa with an unsettled slip cordon which will be in the game all of the time.
To be honest, it was pretty difficult to get involved in this match and not witness the spectacle and a very high quality cricket put on show at the Adelaide Oval. But having said all that, 2-0 would have been a much fairer result.