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The Indian cricket team decimated Sri Lanka by an innings and 53 runs in the second Test of the three match series to take an unassailable 2-0 lead.
The Indian batsmen took the game away from the Islanders in the first two days itself with Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane scoring magnificent centuries and thus helping India put on 622 on the board.
The bowlers performed exceptionally well too and restricted Sri Lanka to 183 in the first innings and enforcing the follow-on. Ravichandran Ashwin picked up his 26th five wicket haul while Jadeja, Mohammad Shami, and Umesh Yadav chipped in with wickets as well.
Sri Lanka performed a lot better in the second innings but were unable to get past the 439 run lead thus giving India an innings victory. Ravindra Jadeja picked up five wickets while Jadeja and Hardik Pandya picked up two wickets each.
Jadeja was named the man of the match for his impressive all-round performance.
Here is how the cricketing world reacted to the win:
Virat Kohli on winning the match:
Well, the way the wicket behaved when Sri Lanka batted first prompted that decision to enforce the follow-on. I'm not a big fan of it, especially when the wicket is breaking down like that. Even 150 in the fourth innings can be tough. You don't want to leave chances but here, we felt we had enough. We are playing Tests at international level and we expect teams to play like (Sri Lanka did). Today, we said, even if we don't get wickets, we will enjoy the tough times. It improves you as a side. We are happy that we went through the difficult place; helps you not get complacent as a side. Saha is definitely the best keeper in this format right now. He's very agile and can create chances at any stage. Pujara and Rahane are our best Test players, KL played well too, and Jadeja contributed lower down the order. Pandya contributed too. For us, it's about taking Indian cricket ahead."
Dinesh Chandimal
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."
Ravindra Jadeja on his man of the match performance:
In the first innings, the ball wasn't turning when we were batting. But then it started turning from the middle part of the wicket. Mendis played very well, played some brilliant shots. As a team, I think we also played good cricket. If the batsman is playing sweep regularly, it's always a challenge. We have to change the line and lengths.
Here are some tweets from the cricketing fraternity:
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