Kumar Sangakkara is the Man of the Match for his splendid knock of 144 which enabled his side post a good first innings total.
Ajantha Mendis is the Man of the Series for his superb debut Test series. He gathered 26 wickets in the three Test match series. This is also a World Record for picking up the most number of Test wickets in a debut series, he surpassed Sir Alec Bedser who piled up 24 wickets.
Handshakes all around as the Indians walk off the field dejected. The visitors were outclassed by some fine display of cricket. Clearly, it was the hyped up batting department which went down like a tube suffering a puncture. Mendis magic continues to baffle the Indians right from the Asia Cup Finals into and throughout this Test series. The Indians failed to solve the mystery and as a result were no match to their opponents. It's said that you need to pick up 20 wickets to win a Test but at the same time you need runs under your belt to have enough confidence to go for the kill. The runs were never there and the middle order disappointed very badly. This series is something that the whole of India would want to forget, such dismal has been their show here.
The positives that India would take from this series would certainly be the promising pair of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir. The Delhi duo continued to impress, they have carried their form nicely from the Twenty20s, ODIs and now into the longest version of the game. Harbhajan Singh would also be another highlight who bounced back to form after being involved in all wrong news which lasted for quite sometime. The biggest and most disappointing weakling would be the middle order which faltered big time to hand the opposition advantage throughout this series.
Mendis and Murali, the awesome twosome hogged all the limelight in this series for the home side. They picked up 47 wickets between them in this series and that is where the knock out punches came from. Malinda Warnapura proved his mettle in this series with good scores under his belt and the senior people shouldered the responsibility well. The weakling would be their opening batsman Vandort who failed to come out of the run drought despite of so much investment of faith in him. The batting department again wasn't at it's best, little more consistency perhaps would take them to places.
With that, we have come to the end of this Test series. We'll be back again with the ODI action which starts on the 18th of this month. Quite a long gap between both the versions, the Indians would use this period to regroup and rethink their strategies. Ofcourse, it would be a brand new side that will take the field for the ODIs but the damage done here in this version might have a huge effect on one and all. Hope you have enjoyed our coverage as much as we have in bringing it to you. Do join us again. Till then
