on the first day of the match is an extraordinary achievement, and India did this for the 14th time. Six of those have come against Sri Lanka alone. When the stumps were drawn, Jadeja was batting on 45 and classy Ravichandran Ashwin on 10. India had three partnerships over fifty apart from a century partnership. There is still some batting left for India which should see the hosts getting past 450 runs, if Lanka fails to wrap up the tail swiftly, they will be in a deep hole. As it stands, they could make inroads early on though conditions suited for pacers. Both Lakmal and Vishwa Fernando were all over the place, allowing the openers to free their arms to give a galloping start. Captain Rohit Sharma and Mayank Agarwal made runs briskly and soon brought up a half-century stand. Both tried to accelerate when Lahiru Kumara hurled Rohit (29) with a flurry of short-pitched deliveries, enticing him to go for pull shot. He successfully sent the short-pitched stuff twice over the ropes, but had a last laugh when Rohit pulled it straight into the hands of Lakmal at long leg. Soon Sri Lanka skipper Dimuth Karunaratne employed left-arm spinner Embuldeniya, a tactic that paid off as he trapped Mayank (33) in front with one sliding on. Embuldeniya would have had Kohli for a duck in his 100th Test had a leading edge landed in one of the fielders in the deep. Vihari and Kohli saw the morning session through. In the post-lunch session, Vihari put Sri Lanka under the pump on his way to his first Test fifty in India. Kohli too settled in and unleashed his favorite shots in a brilliant 90-run stand. Sri Lanka struggled to keep Kohli and Vihari in check, while bowling no-balls at least on eight occasions. However, Embuldeniya finally breached Kohli’s defense to hit the top of the off stump. The former captain fell short of his 50 by 5 runs, even though he raced past the milestone of 8000 Test runs, becoming the sixth Indian to do so, after the likes of Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Virender Sehwag. Kohli’s wicket emboldened Sri Lanka and it soared again when Vihari’s stumps were disturbed off the inside edge off Fernando, but Pant had different plans and restricted Sri Lanka’s claw-back
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