Pant and Vihari’s knocks help hosts post 357/6 on Day 1

Rishabh Pant’s belligerent knock of 96 and Hanuma Vihari’s 58 along with contributions from Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja helped hosts score 357/6 at stumps on day-1 here at the PCA IS Bindra stadium.

Resuming the post-tea session at 199/4 Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer batted sensibly as India crosses the 200-run mark and the duo notched up a fifty partnership. Shreyas Iyer was looking good but was dismissed leg before wicket by Dhananjaya de Silva for 27 to leave India at 228/5 breaking the 53-run partnership. Pant carried on kept scoring runs at a brisk pace by hitting boundaries and went on to score his 8th Test half-century. Ravindra Jadeja who was making a comeback into the Test team after recovering from injury showed little signs of rust and gave company to Pant from the other end.

Pant-Jadeja duo notched up a fifty partnership. Wicket-keeper batter Pant became aggressive after his half-century and started taking the Lankan spinners to the cleaners hitting some big sixes against them.

Pant along with Jadeja took the team’s total beyond the 300-run mark and notched up a 100-run partnership. Rishabh Pant missed on a century as he was cleaned bowled for 96 by pacer Suranga Lakmal. Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin from there on ensured that there was no further loss of wicket as India ended day-1 at 357/6. Jadeja remained unbeaten on 45 while Ashwin was unbeaten on 10.

Earlier in the day captain, Rohit Sharma won the toss and decided to bat first, India started off well with openers Rohit and Agarwal, thrashing the Lankan bowlers. The duo took the hosts to the 50-run mark in just 9 overs.

The visitors finally heaved a sigh of relief when Lahiru Kumara dismissed Rohit, who was caught by Suranga Lakmal at the fine leg, leaving the team’s total at 52/1. Following the skipper’s dismissal, Vihari joined Agarwal and kept the scoreboard moving for India.

Agarwal was then sent back for 33 runs by Lasith Embuldeniya. His wicket meant Virat Kohli’s arrival, who is playing his 100th Test match.

Then, Kohli along with Vihari anchored the innings and ensured that there was no further damage.

Resuming the post-lunch session at 109/2 the duo of Virat Kohli and Hanuma Vihari carried on in a solid manner as the duo notched up a fifty partnership and Vihari also notched up his fifth Test half-century to take the team’s total to the 150-run mark.

Virat Kohli kept scoring runs at a brisk pace and became the sixth Indian batter to notch up a milestone of 8000 Test runs. The Sri Lankan bowlers struggled as they bowled a lot of front foot no balls. The 90-run partnership between Kohli and Vihari was finally broken as Lasith Embuldeniya cleaned up Kohli for 45 to leave India at 170/3. In the space of five runs, India lost another wicket in the form of well-set Hanuma Vihari who played on to left-arm pacer Vishwa Fernando for 58 to leave India at 175/4.

Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer batted sensibly from there on to ensure that there was no further damage as India scored 199/4 going into Tea scoring 90 runs in the session losing 2 wickets.

Brief scores: India 357/6 (Rishabh Pant 96, Hanuma Vihari 58; Lasith Embuldeniya 2-107, Dhananjaya de Silva 1-47) vs Sri Lanka