Retiring Sangakkara wants rising Lankans to be ‘fearless’

The visitors made 393 in the first innings against host Sri Lanka’s total of 306.

Former team-mate Mahela Jayawardene, with whom Sangakkara shared a world record partnership of 624 against South Africa in 2006, said he was proud of his close friend’s achievements.

“I think his (Kohli) natural attacking style will help the team take on new frontiers”. Starting at their overnight score of 72/2, skipper Angelo Mathews (23) was caught behind off Umesh Yadav (1-18) in the 22nd over and nearly immediately the slide began for the hosts.

At the presentation ceremony, Sangakkara was handed a signed shirt by both Sri Lankan and Indian teams before making an emotional speech at the P Sara Oval.

The wily off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin again did the bulk of the damage with superb figures of 5 for 42 as the Lankans capitulated spectacularly to give Virat Kohli his first Test win as captain with nearly two full sessions to spare.

Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara said a tearful farewell to worldwide cricket Monday and was immediately offered the post of the island’s top envoy in Britain, where he plays county cricket.

The series will stay in Colombo for the third Test, but before it moves on, let’s take a look back at the fifth and final day of the second Test.

India will now enter the final Test Friday with renewed confidence after losing the opener by 63 runs in Galle last week.

While Kohli was celebrating his first Test triumph as skipper, Kumar Sangakkara exited the global arena on a damp squib. “We were pumped up to take wickets and didn’t want to lose time”.

Not many aren’t aware, but this is India’s first Test victory since their historic win at Lord’s previous year.

“Ashwin in this series, Zaheer Khan, Graeme Swann – when I’ve played against some of these bowlers”. The amount of turn Mishra generated with the dismissal of Chandimal – bowled around his legs, immediately prompted Kohli to turn to his leading spinner.

“After junior cricket if the team wanted me to keep in a one-off/odd match or if anyone got injured I was up for it. I kept in one-dayers and T20s”.

Sri Lanka’s last recognised batsman Dimuth Karunaratne was bowled by Ashwin for 46.