IND VS SL - 2nd Test, Sri Lanka tour of India, 2017

Harsha Bhogle: Very disappointing from Sri Lanka today. I wonder what the levels of self-belief in the dressing room are. While India will be happy with the runs from Murali Vijay, the biggest return from this game is the bowling of Ishant Sharma.

India have built up a head of steam in Test cricket, and it's all leading up to that tour of South Africa. And even the overseas assignments they have next year. But they'll first have to get through another Test match with Sri Lanka before completely dedicating their focus towards sterner assignments. Will Sri Lanka improve? Can Sri Lanka improve? I'm highly doubtful of that. So that's all we have from here. This is Sagar Chawla signing off on behalf of Akshay Maanay, Pratyush Sinha, Abhinand Raghavendran, Pradeep Krishnamurthy and our scorer Shashikant Singh. See you later!

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We leave you with a few stats, courtesy Deepu Narayanan

Fewest Tests to 300 wickets:
54 R Ashwin*
56 D Lillee
58 M Muralitharan
61 R Hadlee/ M Marshall/ D Steyn
63 S Warne/ A Donald
64 A Donald

Ashwin breaks Dennis Lillee's record exactly 36 years after the latter set it (27 Nov 1981).

Biggest innings wins for India:
inn and 239 runs v SL, Nagpur, 2017*
inn and 239 runs v Ban, Dhaka, 2007
inn and 219 runs v Aus, Kolkata, 1999
inn and 198 runs v NZ, Nagpur, 2010
inn and 171 runs v SL, Pallekele, 2017

Biggest innings defeats for SL:
inn and 239 runs v Ind, Nagpur, 2017*
inn and 229 runs v SA, Cape Town, 2001
inn and 208 runs v SA, Colombo SSC, 1993
inn and 201 runs v Aus, MCG, 2012

Fewest balls to 300 wickets among spinners:
15634 R Ashwin*
18501 S Warne
18622 M Muralitharan
19367 R Herath
19867 Harbhajan

Fewest days from debut to 300 Test wickets:
2196 S Warne
2214 R Ashwin*
2570 I Botham
2577 G McGrath
2798 S Broad
2822 M Johnson

Highest % of innings defeats inflicted upon an opponent: (excludes Zim & Ban)
25.58 India against SL (11/43)
24.00 SA against SL (6/25)

Most wins as captain after 31 Tests:
23 Ricky Ponting (3 losses)
21 Steve Waugh (5)
20 Virat Kohli (3)*
19 M Vaughan (5)

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Kohli was also the Man of the Match, so there's that

Kohli: The pitch was very good to bat on. It was on the slower side but there was nothing much happening. I just wanted to bat the way I wanted to - get into good positions and keep rotating strike. Try to keep the scoreboard ticking. Get the runs quickly so we have time to bowl the opposition out, something we'll have to do on tours. It's something I've wanted to better myself (converting hundreds to daddy ones). For the pure reason that the team should benefit. When you lose concentration after hundred, you can lose two wickets quickly after that. The idea is for the set batsman to carry on. It's important to buckle up after the hundred so the team can be in a good position. My fitness also helped me to push harder, bat for longer periods. It's a combination of many things. Pujara, obviously he's been very consistent. Vijay was playing after a while, he takes a lot of pride in playing Test cricket. He's a technically sound player. Prepares well for Tests. I know how much it hurts for him to have missed so many Tests in the recent past. Rohit too, we believed in him. He's made a statement. When we speak of combinations for the future, Rohit will definitely be in the fray. Bhuvi has played a lot of cricket for India in the recent few months. Ishant, Shami and Umesh haven't played so much recently. Playing first-class cricket has helped them. Ishant was outstanding. Umesh was in good rhythm too. Shami was outstanding in Kolkata. We have bowlers in good rhythm. We need them to play as much as possible. We would like to think that we want to prepare for that (South Africa tour). That's why we asked for pitches that have a bit more life in it, bit of help for the fast bowlers. This one deteriorated pretty quickly from the second day onwards. Kolkata was a very nice wicket, something we ideally want to have before South Africa. That is a big tour coming up. Everyone's looking forward to that.

Chandimal: It was a good toss to win. Unfortunately we were outplayed from the first day. Our batting let us down again. When you're playing against India, you've got to score 350-plus. Before we came here, we had a game-plan. We said to the guys - if you get a start you have to go on. Hopefully these youngsters will come back strong. Mathews is the senior-most guy in the batting line-up. If he's not scoring, the batting line-up has let us down. I'm sure he'll come back strong. We need to get positives out of this. When we're bowling, our body language was superb. Need to score more runs in the first innings. That's what we need to discuss as a unit. This wicket was good to bat on for the first three days. The bowling unit has done a really good job. But if you have no runs on the board, they can't do anything.

Ishant: I think the way Umesh, Shami and Bhuvi have been bowling it is tremendous. I didn't take much wickets when I was playing, especially the last few matches at home. They deserved to get a chance before me. At this moment that's what matters - how you are going to pick wickets and all about the tactics. The wicket columns were always empty but now I am taking wickets and even the tactics are working. It all depends on the fitness, all thanks to Basu sir, pushing everyone hard and Virat is setting the example. So, everyone needs to be on their toes and perform whenever you get a chance. I think it is a pretty good competition, a healthy competition, especially with the way everyone is performing. Right now whenever you get an opportunity, you have to take wickets and perform for the team.

(2/2) It (break from white-ball cricket) has brought different perspectives to life in general. It has been a longer break than I have been used to in the last 8-9 years. But what's been important is the amount of cricket I have played in different conditions. I really enjoyed my time at Worcester. The boys were great, the dressing room was great and I did learn a lot of things. I have worked on different loadings, different actions and all that. It has come together well. I have also played the holding role when I played there. The stint also helped me be a lot more patient. It is coming out really well. It is a young career; only 50 matches or something like that. Hopefully I can play more and double that up. If we can continue the good work into the next 18 months then we will be in a good space. I am tired. It is not easy bowling spin, there is a lot of work that goes into it. We have bowled a lot of overs, me and Jaddu in the last 24 months. I am lot more experienced now.

Ashwin: (1/2) Today was a bit funny in the morning because when we started off few balls spun a bit and few were keeping straight and obviously Jaddu broke first. I thought everybody bowled really well today, special mention to Ishant, he has also come back and bowled really well. The angle of release also makes it more difficult. Different height of release also augurs for different sort of spin on these wickets. You do not get much bounce or fizz from these sort of wickets. The hand speed is obviously important, me and Jaddu, both of us bowl at an ideal speed and that helps. We are a lot more blessed than what the other greats were with all the technology at our disposal. We are also very well informed about what fitness and what regime to go through which they didn't have. So it is unfair to compare, but I am extremely happy where I have got in my career so far. It (the last wicket) was a good ball. I have not bowled a lot of carrom balls in the last 24 months. I have worked on different releases of the carrom ball and different loading positions. With us traveling more, more subtlety is important.

Harsha Bhogle: 300 wickets in 54 tests is a colossal achievement for Ravichandran Ashwin. It makes him worthy of being called a modern great. I must confess it irritates me no end when people focus on what Ashwin hasn't done. Like they did with the giant Kumble who took 619 wickets.

Ashwin and Ishant were the standouts with the ball for India. Here's the offie in a post match interview after becoming the quickest to 300 Test wickets.

Phew, how the once mighty Sri Lanka have fallen. The one wish for them was to go down fighting and take it into the final day. But they've just dropped dead on the spot. They batted first on a good pitch. And then they immediately squandered the advantage by getting knocked off for just over 200. Why? Because they weren't good enough. That's something which will hurt the most. They haven't been good enough. India spent the next couple of days toying with Sri Lanka, compounding their misery, and racking up truckloads of runs with Kohli, Pujara, Vijay, Rohit - all of them scaling milestones of some kind or another. It left Sri Lanka bloodied by late yesterday. They just had nothing left when their batsmen took the field the second time round.

13:00 Local Time, 07:30 GMT, 13:00 IST: The clock has just tipped past 1pm, and that's all it's taken to bundle Sri Lanka out today. What an abject, abject performance. A complete drubbing if I've ever seen one. India have, in fact, equalled their biggest win-margin in Test cricket (by innings). There's hardly much celebration though. They just shake hands, a couple of them pluck out a few stumps. Ashwin doesn't want a dirty stump. He scrapes off the mud with the help of a bail before he walks off.

Ashwin to Gamage, out Bowled!! It's all over. Or is it? The bail is off its groove. We're going upstairs to check if Gamage has indeed been out bowled. Yes he has. This was a fantastic carrom ball which would have got the better of many a batsman. Grip, turn, squares Gamage up and flicks off-stump. 300 Test wickets for Ashwin, becoming the fastest bowler to get there in Test history. Incredible effort. Gamage b Ashwin 0(9)

Ashwin to Gamage, THATS OUT!! Bowled!!

It's all over. Or is it? The bail is off its groove. We're going upstairs to check if Gamage has indeed been out bowled.

Ashwin to Gamage, no run, smothered

Ashwin to Gamage, no run, the carrom ball drifts in on leg and hits Gamage on the front pad. Too leg-sidish for an lbw appeal

U Yadav to Lakmal, no run, looks for the cut again, and misses again. It was on this time.. or maybe not. Needed a bit more room

U Yadav to Lakmal, no run, short of length on off, blocked back