Azharuddin, whose nomination was rejected two years ago, submitted his papers to former Chief Election Commissioner VS Sampath on Wednesday.
The visitors have a 2-0 lead in the series and can wrap up the contest with another win here before leaving for the last leg of the tour in Colombo.
The hosts have hit nadir in both form and confidence, and, after a lop-sided 3-0 Test series victory, the script did not change much in the opening ODI, where India steamrolled the opposition by nine wickets.
India, resuming the day at 344 for three, went on to declare at 622 for nine post tea, thanks to half centuries from Ravichandran Ashwin (54 off 92), Wriddhiman Saha (67 off 134) and Ravindra Jadeja (70 not out off 85).
Hardik has just taken 10 Tests to record a rare feat -- scored a ton and taken 5 wickets. Still not 25, Hardik has shown that he belongs to the place, says Rajneesh Gupta, giving us the numbers that matter.
Considered one of the greatest finishers in 50-overs cricket, Dhoni will join India's elite 'Club 300', which has Sachin Tendulkar (463), Rahul Dravid (344), Mohammed Azharuddin (334), Sourav Ganguly (311) and Yuvraj Singh (304).
Sri Lankan batting once again promised a lot but delivered too little losing as many as seven wickets for 53 runs after they were cruising along at 185 for 3.
India will begin the journey to identify the core of their 2019 World Cup squad when they square off against a low-on-confidence Sri Lanka in a five-match ODI series, starting in Dambulla, on Sunday.
Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji check out how Team India fared on the Sri Lanka tour and find out which cricketers were truly valuable to the team.
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