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Indian batter Devdutt Padikkal fell just five short of breaking Rahul Dravid's long-standing record against Sri Lanka on Tuesday.
After scoring a magnificent 167 off 230 balls in the first innings, Padikkal looked in sublime touch in the second innings too. However, a leg-before-wicket from Keshara Nuwantha cut his innings short to 44 in 75 balls, with six fours. Padikkal's match aggregate was 211 runs, the most by an Indian number three in a Test against Sri Lanka since Rahul Dravid's 215 runs against SL in the 2009 Ahmedabad Test, where he scored 177 and 38. Dravid also holds the most runs in a match for an Indian number three, with 305 runs against Australia at Adelaide in 2003, where he scored an iconic 233, followed by 72* in India's win. Coming to the match, India had lost nine wickets for less than 200 runs in their second innings, but their lead had gone up to 369 runs. Despite India having built a heavy cushion of runs, Sri Lanka continued to fight back with regular wickets during the first session on day four of the Galle Test on Tuesday. India at the end of session one was 116/4, with Rishabh Pant (21*) and Dhruv Jurel (5*) unbeaten. India leads by 294 runs. Despite Sonal Dinusha's maiden Test hundred on Day 3 of the first Test match, Sri Lanka could only make 284 in the first innings in response to India's 462, and the Shubman Gill-led side took a big lead of 178 runs in Galle. Dinusha and the wicketkeeper-batter Niroshan Dickwella added 146 runs for the sixth wicket and kept Indian bowlers at bay, but the seamer Prasidh Krishna dismissed Dickwella for 80 runs in the 62nd over. Sonal stuck around to get a ton, but Suthar (4/76) and Jadeja (3/57) denied Sri Lanka a chance to score bigger. (ANI)
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