India Test skipper Virat Kohli has said captaincy won't be an added pressure for him in the tough assignment in Sri Lanka and he will look to play good cricket in the three-Test series starting next week.
Three months after subjecting Sri Lanka to a 9-0 whitewash across all formats, Virat Kohli's men prevailed 1-0 in the latest round of a duel between the neighbours to seal their record-equalling ninth consecutive test series win.
'Not thought about scoring five hundreds. I just go out there and do my job. Not thinking about all these kind of milestones'
A country which produced champion players of spin bowling such as Roy Dias, Arjuna Ranatunga, Aravinda de Silva, Sanath Jayasuriya, Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, it has been sharp downward slide for Dinesh Chandimal's men, who have consistently failed against Indian spin duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.
Photos from Day 3 of the first Test played in Galle on Friday.
Shehzad-Ali add 120 runs for second wicket as Pakistan trail by six runs with eight wickets in hand
Sri Lanka were finally able to pose a challenge to India in the first Test after being hammered in the home series and that, according to chief coach Nic Pothas, was a huge positive.
Ashwin termed Sri Lanka's tour of 2015 as a landmark for Indian team for their come-from-behind 2-1 series win. "In 2015, we were sandwiched into the middle of a leadership takeover. Virat had just taken over in Australia and we came here having played one Test in Bangladesh. We had set ourselves a lot of goals for each other and I would say we have achieved them and come out with flying colours over the last couple of years as a group"
Openers Dimuth Karunaratne and Kaushal Silva struck patient half-centuries to help Sri Lanka secure a comprehensive nine-wicket victory against Pakistan in the second Test and take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series on Sunday.
While Sangakkara advises the under-fire keeper-batsman to keep things simple
Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji figure out who are the most valuable players after the league phase of the World Cup intheir latest update.
'I would have loved to win a 50-over World Cup. We had two chances, but we didn't convert them.' 'There are regrets, but not regrets that I will be thinking about for years and years.'
Rain threatens to disrupt the first day's play when Sri Lanka and India face-off in the opening Test at Galle on Wednesday.
Bangladesh's first World Cup centurion Mahmudullah is hoping to extend his big scoring spree at the World Cup when he faces off against India.
Rajneesh Gupta presents some interesting numbers from Day 1 of the Chennai Test
Sri Lankan batting stalwart Mahela Jayawardene will retire from Twenty20 Internationals after the conclusion of the ongoing T20 World Cup in Bangladesh.
Kumar Sangakkara created history by notching up a record fourth consecutive ODI century that powered Sri Lanka to a crushing 148-run win over Scotland in their final group league match of the ongoing cricket World Cup in Hobart.
Kumar Sangakkara, playing his final one-day international on home soil, set a record for the most runs in a calendar year as Sri Lanka thumped England by 87 runs in the last match of the series in Colombo on Tuesday.
India's Test captain Virat Kohli has dropped out of ICC's top-10 list for batsmen in the five-day format.
Alastair Cook should be dropped as England's One-Day International captain after presiding over another "flat and tedious" display in an eight-wicket defeat by Sri Lanka on Saturday, according to former all-rounder Ian Botham.
Kumar Sangakkara continued his awesome batting form in Bangladesh as Sri Lanka won the second One-Day International by 61 runs in Dhaka on Thursday to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series.
A final-over blitz by Nathan McCullum gave New Zealand a thrilling last-ball victory by four wickets over Sri Lanka in the rain-hit second One-Day International on Tuesday.
Sri Lanka's Twenty20 captain and strike bowler Lasith Malinga has hinted that he might call time on his international career after the International Cricket Council World T20 in India as he is finding it difficult to manage a grave knee injury.
Hailing India's series levelling win against Sri Lanka in the second Test as a start of a bright future, former captain Sunil Gavaskar said that the Virat Kohli-led side not only looks "determined" but has also found the right balance in all departments.
Allan Border, Steve Waugh, Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and Muttiah Muralitharan are among the cricketers who will accompany Ian Botham at various points of his latest charity walk in Sri Lanka.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar has emerged as one of the five players nominated for the LG People's Choice Award ahead of the ICC annual awards.
Former Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene, on Sunday, said he felt disillusioned with the state of cricket in the country and thus declined an offer to play a role in the team's World Cup campaign.
'It is hugely disappointing because of the amount of work ethics that goes in behind the scenes. It is embarrassing (defeat). Players should be embarrassed with their own performances. Net practice means nothing if you don't get out and put runs on the board'
'Dhoni was a very shrewd captain in terms of his out of the box thinking and getting the work done.'
England's predicted line-up for the first Test in Brisbane includes Mark Stoneman, James Vince and Dawid Malan, who will walk out without a Test century to their names.
Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar believes that the youngest entrant in the illustrious 10,000 Test run club, Alastair Cook can challenge batting legend Sachin Tendulkar's all-time Test run record. Cook became the first England cricketer to cross the 10,000-run mark in Test cricket, and the youngest overall, beating Tendulkar's record by five months by reaching the milestone at the age of 31 years and five months. Tendulkar -- Test cricket's most prolific batsman with 15921 runs -- was 31 years, 10 months 20 days old when he scored his 10,000th run in 2005. "Well the big advantage that England always has is that they are always playing a minimum of 11-12 Test matches on an average in a year. In 11-12 Test matches even if you score 50 runs per Test match you are getting about 500 runs every year," Gavaskar said.
Captain Alastair Cook savoured a special moment in his glittering career after becoming the first England cricketer to reach 10,000 Test runs during the second Test against Sri Lanka in Durham.
The Sri Lankan cricket board has turned down an invitation from the Pakistan Cricket Board to send its team to Lahore to play two T20 International matches at the start of its home series in October.
A selection of musings from around the cricket World Cup.
Sri Lanka held their nerve after a brilliant century by Jos Buttler to beat England by seven runs in the fourth one-day international at Lord's on Saturday and level the series at 2-2.
India's premier strike bowler Ravichandran Ashwin does not want to put extra pressure on himself thinking about the coveted milestone of reaching 300 Test wickets in remaining 10 home matches this season as these aspects can rob a player's enjoyment derived from his game.
Virat Kohli remained the highest-placed Indian batsman at fourth even as Shikhar Dhawan rose a rung to sixth in the latest ICC ODI rankings.
South Africa One-day captain AB de Villiers swatted aside suggestions that India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin could prove his nemesis.
Hamilton Masakadza scored a run-a-ball century as Zimbabwe stunned Sri Lanka with a comprehensive seven-wicket victory in a World Cup warm-up at Bert Sutcliffe Oval on Wednesday.
Australia captain Steve Smith reached a career-high 939 rating points which are the sixth-best ever after Don Bradman (961), Len Hutton (945), Jack Hobbs and Ricky Ponting (both 942) and Peter May (941).
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