Ind vs SL 3rd Test: Lanka vanishes India's hopes; match drawn

New Delhi: The Sri Lankan batsmen accomplished an uphill task to keep India away from victory by playing out the entire fifth day of the third and final Test being played at the Feroz Shah Kotla ground here on Wednesday.

Beginning the final day under immense pressure at 31/3, Sri Lanka lost its last inning's centurion Angelo Mathews early. It, however, could not dampen the hopes of Dhananjaya de Silva and skipper Dinesh Chandimal, who stitched together an important 112-run partnership and wasted more than 33 overs without a wicket.

Chandimal might have got out for 36 runs off 90 balls, but De Silva continued his formidable inning till he had to get retired hurt at the individual score of 119 runs. He took 219 deliveries and decorated his inning with 15 fours and a six. His gritty hundred consolidated the visitors' believe that they could end the match in a draw and restrict India from going 2-0 up in the three-match series.

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After De Silva left for the pavilion, Roshen Silva took the charge and started to play his shots with perfection and eventually added a tremendous unbeaten –run partnership with Niroshan Dickwella. Silva remained unbeaten at 74 runs off 154 balls with 11 fours, while Dickwella added 44 runs off 72 balls with 6 fours.

Jadeja, who had put Lanka under severe pressure with two wickets in one over before the end of the fourth day of play, could only manage one more wicket today. Ravichandran Ashwin could only bag one wicket in a fifth day track in form of Chandimal. Mohammed Shami was the only other wicket taker as he had stunned opener Samarwickrama on Day 4.

Player of the match: Virat Kohli

Player of the series: Virat Kohli

Ishant Sharma could not get any wickets in this inning, while Murali Vijay and Virat Kohli also tried their luck in one over each.

With this draw, India has won the series 1-0 with Kolkata and Delhi matches ending in a draw.

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A brief summary of the entire match:

• India won the toss and asked Sri Lanka to field first
• India posted 536/7d on the board
• Skipper Virat Kohli scored his sixth career double century (243 runs off 287 balls, 25 boundaries)
• Murali Vijay also scored 155 runs off 267 balls with 13 fours
• Rohit Sharma added 65 runs off 102 balls
• Sandakan picked up 4 wickets.
• In reply, Sri Lanka managed to escape follow on by posting 373 runs on the board
• Chandimal scored a brilliant 164 runs off 361 balls, 21 fours and a six
• Angelo Mathews scored 111 runs off 268 balls with 14 fours and 2 sixes
• Ishant and Ashwin took 3 wickets each while Shami and Jadeja got 2 each
• India came in to play the second inning and set a scored 246/5d to give 410-run target to Lanka
• Shikhar Dhawan scored 67, Cheteshwar Pujara scored 49, while Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma added 50 each.
• Sri Lanka ended the match at 299/5 playing out 103 overs.