Former Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene on November 20 lauded Niroshan Dickwella’s attitude and antics to save the Test match for the Sri Lankans on Day 5 at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata. Sri Lankans got off to bad start while chasing a target of 231 as they lost their four top-order batsmen in under 12 overs. Niroshan Dickwella, who came into bat at number 5 after the fall of Angelo Mathew’s (12) wicket, tried to waste as much time as he could during his stay at the crease to take the Test match towards a draw.
The first incident happened after the 15th over when Niroshan Dickwella had a long chat with his other partner Dinesh Chandimal. Ravichandran Ashwin pointed out the delay and forced on-field umpire Nigel Llong to intervene in the matter. Virat Kohli too raised an objection with the umpires.
— cricket (@84107010ghwj) November 20, 2017
The second incident happened in the 19th over as Dickwella took ages to take the strike. During this, he even stopped Mohammed Shami in between during his run-up. Dickwella’s this attitude riled up Shami as he walked towards Dickwella with anger. Umpire Llong had to call Kohli to mediate when the matters seemed to turn ugly.
— cricket (@84107010ghwj) November 20, 2017
Bhuvneshwar Kumar managed to send back Dickwella to the pavilion during the 24th over but it was too late as the on-field umpires called the day off due to bad light and Sri Lankans (75/7, 25.3 overs) managed to save the Test match.
Mahela Jayawardene congratulated the team on Twitter. He posted:
Enjoyed @NiroshanDikka attitude and antics this afternoon. Good test match.. well played @imVkohli. Looking forward to the next one.__
— Mahela Jayawardena (@MahelaJay) November 20, 2017
Kohli was quick to reply and he wrote:
Yes, test cricket at it’s best. Onto the next one now. ___
— Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) November 20, 2017
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Earlier, skipper Virat Kohli led from the front with an unbeaten 104 as India set a target of 231 for Sri Lanka to win the opening Test. Kohli brought up his 18th Test century in style by smashing Suranga Lakmal for a six and immediately declared the hosts’ second innings at 352/8. During this course, Virat Kohli also equalled Sunil Gavaskar’s record for most number of centuries (11) in Test cricket by an Indian captain.
