Shikhar Dhawan ton extends India’s dominance

Galle: After claiming a six-wicket haul against Sri Lanka on the opening day of the first Test against Sri Lanka, Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin said on Wednesday that he was looking to contribute towards the team’s success and is not bothered about personal milestones.

Shikhar Dhawan seemed to continue from where he left off in Bangladesh as he stroked his way to an unbeaten 53 while skipper Virat Kohli looked supremely confident during his undefeated knock of 45.

India will resume after lunch with a lead of 44 runs and eight wickets in hand. Ashwin was the inspiration behind India’s impressive performance, and his figures of 6/46 was the best by an Indian in Sri Lanka, surpassing Harbhajan Singh’s 6/102 during the 2008 series. With the pitch playing easy and Sri Lanka’s spinners not extracting significant turn from it, Dhawan and Kohli ticked away at the total without taking undue risks. Sri Lanka suffered a major blow due to a flu attack on skipper Angelo Mathews. In the second hour, though, the pace picked up and India ended with 99 runs in the session. Dhawan’s stocks as a Test opener rose as he registered his second successive ton to put India in command. Lahiru Thirimanne took over the captaincy but had no success with his bowling changes.

In reply, India got off to a bad start, losing opener Lokesh Rahul (7) in the third over of their innings. He had an interesting duel with Rangana Herath (40/0), who had a couple good LBW shouts against the batsman, but the Indian captain made sure that he planted his front-foot just outside the bowler’s line and put that mode of dismissal out of context. Barring skipper Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal, none of the top or middle-order batsmen were ready to spend time in the middle.