Sri Lanka's Kaushal Silva and Kumar Sangakkara offered stubborn resistance on the second day of the opening Test after Joe Root put England in control by hitting his maiden Test double ton on Friday.
India would look to avenge the league stage humiliation and clinch their second successive ODI trophy on Sri Lankan soil when they take on the hosts in what promises to be a high-voltage summit clash of the tri-series in Dambulla on Saturday.
Following are the statistical highlights of first match of the Champions Trophy between Sri Lanka and South Africa played at Supersports Park.
England captain Alastair Cook is all set to break India's legendary batsman Sachin's Tendulkar's record by becoming the youngest batsman in the history of the game to score 10,000 Test runs. Cook is just 36 runs shy of reaching the milestone and once he gets there, he will also become the first English batsman to reach the feat. Cook will be targeting the mark in England's first Test against Sri Lanka at Headingley on Thursday. Tendulkar's 10,000th Test run came against Pakistan in Kolkata in March 2005, a little more than a month before his 32nd birthday. Cook meanwhile, turned 31 on Christmas Day last year, meaning if he scores the 36 runs required in the opening Test against the visiting Sri Lankans, he would have reached the 10,000 barrier five months younger than India's batting legend.
Images from the third day of the third and final Test between India nad Sri Lanka at the P Sara Stadium on Thursday.
Captain Kumar Sangakkara top-scored with a brisk 75, while Mahela Jayawardene and Thilan Samaraweera also hit half-centuries, as Sri Lanka took the honours on day one of the third and final Test against India, at the P Sara Oval in Colombo, on Tuesday.
Images from the openong day of the third and final Test betweeen India and Sri Lanka at the P Sara Stadium in Colombo on Tuesday.
India may have flopped in the opening Test against Sri Lanka but opener Virender Sehwag held on to the number one spot, while Sachin Tendulkar gained a place to be seventh in the latest ICC rankings for batsmen issued on Friday.
Sam Curran grabbed four top Indian wickets in the first innings and gave his team a precious 13-run lead despite a century by Indian skipper Kohli.
Images from the second One-Day International between India and Sri Lanka in Nagpur on Friday.
Kohli promoting Pandya ahead of Dhoni is an indication that the skipper is looking to use his former captain more as an accumulator -- in Javed Miandad mould who would rotate strike, frustrate bowlers and launch a furious counter-attack after getting his eye in.
Images from the first Twenty20 International between India and Sri Lanka in Nagpur, on Wednesday.
Rain threatens to disrupt the first day's play when Sri Lanka and India face-off in the opening Test at Galle on Wednesday.
Images from the Indian Premier League match between Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals in Mohali, on Wednesday.
England captain Alastair Cook will be eyeing a place in history when his side's three-Test series with Sri Lanka begins in Leeds on May 19. Cook boasts 9,964 runs and is just 36 runs short of completing 10,000 runs in Test cricket. More notably, the 31-year old can eclipse master blaster Sachin Tendulkar's record of being the youngest to reach the 10,000-run feat. Tendulkar's 10,000th Test run came against Pakistan in Kolkata in March 2005, a little more than a month before his 32nd birthday. Cook meanwhile, turned 31 on Christmas Day last year, meaning if he scores the 36 runs required in the opening Test against the visiting Sri Lankans at Headingley, he would have reached the 10,000 barrier five months younger than India's batting legend. While Cook looks likely to become the youngest man to 10,000 Test runs, he won't be the fastest to reach the milestone in terms of innings played.
Images from the Indian Premier League match between Kings XI Punjab and Delhi Daredevils in Mohali, on Saturday.
Miffed with the docile pitch in the drawn Ahmedabad Test against Sri Lanka, feisty Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh on Saturday said such batting-friendly tracks would kill cricket's longest format.
Unseasonal rain in Mumbai could deny the tourists vital match practice before the first Test against India that begins in Ahmedabad on November 16.
Visiting Sri Lankan team skipper Kumar Sangakkara on Sunday lavished praise on Sachin Tendulkar, who will complete 20 years in international cricket on November 15, saying the Indian the 'greatest player of the modern era'.
Hashim Amla's 13th One-day International century and a clinical performance in the field carried South Africa to a comfortable 75 run victory in the opener of their three-match series against Sri Lanka on Sunday.
The top twenty batsmen and bowlers in 2011, after the Chittagong Test between Bangladesh and West Indies.
Mahela Jayawardene stroked a classy 98 not out as Sri Lanka easily beat hosts West Indies by 57 runs in their Group F Super Eight match in the Twenty20 World Cup in Bridgetown on Friday.
Images from the first match of the T20 World Cup between Sri Lanka and New Zealand, in Guyana on Friday.
Nathan McCullum came up with an all-round performance to guide New Zealand to a thrilling two-wicket win against Sri Lanka in the Twenty20 World Cup in Guyana on Friday.
Elated after winning the tri-series on Wednesday night, Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara said he is all the more delighted because the youngsters played a big part in the achievement.
Sri Lanka Cricket's selection committee chairman Aravinda de Silva stood by his panel and took full responsibility for making last-minute changes to the team for the ICC World Twenty20. "All decisions were taken in the best interest of the team and we take responsibility," de Silva, the hero of Sri Lanka's 1996 World Cup win, said. He replaced the committee headed by Kapila Wijegoonawardana. Wijegoonawardana's committee was sacked by the Sports Ministry just a few days before the team departed. De Silva's committee, which also included Kumar Sangakkara, made changes to the squad picked by the previous committee. Sri Lanka fared poorly and failed to make it to the semifinals in a woeful defence of their title won in 2014.
Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara said it works in the team's favour not to be mentioned as favourites because the players will be able to operate under the radar and there will not be too much attention given to them.
Rookie India pacer Sudeep Tyagi wants to forget Ferozeshah Kotla pitch fiasco in his debut match against Sri Lanka and eyeing some impressive performance in the forthcoming tour of Bangladesh.
Shikhar Dhawan continues his golden run in Sri Lanka.
Alastair Cook, as unflappable as ever, led from the front in the final innings of his record-breaking Test career as England built a commanding 154-run lead over India at the Oval on Sunday.
The Ferozeshah Kotla stood disgraced on Sunday after the fifth and final India-Sri Lanka ODI was abandoned following visiting captain Kumar Sangakkara's refusal to play on a dangerous pitch, raising the possibility of the venue being banned for a minimum of one year.
Daniel Vettori became second New Zealander (after Richard Hadlee) and 24th bowler overall to take 300 wickets in Test cricket, when he dismissed Kumar Sangakkara's on the first day of second and final Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo on Wednesday. More remarkably, Vettori is the first left-arm spinner to accomplish the feat.
The Sri Lanka team was fined for maintaining a slow over-rate during its six-wicket defeat to India in the second Twenty20 International in Mohali on Saturday. Jeff Crowe of the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Match Referees imposed the fines after Kumar Sangakkara's side was ruled to be two overs short of its target at the end of the match when time allowances were taken into consideration.
Bhajji, Afridi among 8 ambassadors for ICC Champions Trophy
The biggest positive for Sri Lanka since the crushing defeat to India in the second Test could perhaps be the unavailability of Gautam Gambhir for the third Test, in Mumbai, beginning on Wednesday. The left-hander hit back-to-back centuries in the first two Tests of the series but was forced to opt out of the third because of his sister's wedding.
'Mystery' spinner Ajantha Mendis went into the second Test against India with a reputation to protect, but was stripped off his cloak of enigma after 19 futile overs.
Sri Lanka has put more distance between it and England following its 2-0 series victory over Pakistan, which concluded with a draw in the third Test in Colombo on Friday. Kumar Sangakkara's side, which remains in fourth position, gained three ratings points and moved to 111, stretching its lead over fifth-placed England to 10 points and bringing it within just six of India, which currently occupies third position on the Reliance Mobile ICC Test Championship table.
Mahela Jayawardene scored four streaky runs in his last Test, as Pakistan's bowlers dismantled Sri Lanka's first innings on the opening day of the second and final match, in Colombo, on Thursday.
Rohit Sharma is set to play at number three in the first Test against Sri Lanka beginning on Wednesday but Sunil Gavaskar feels India captain Virat Kohli should bat at the crucial position.
Pakistan Punjab governor Salmaan Tahseer, Governor of Pakistan's Punjab province on Tuesday, said the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team's bus in Lahore was similar to the Mumbai's 26/11 attack. Four Pakistan players -- Kumar Sangakkara, Ajantha Mendis, Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavithana -- were injured after armed gunmen attacked the team bus and hurled grenades as they made their way to the Gaddafi stadium in Lahore to take part in the second Test.
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