After facing a shameful defeat in the 1st test against Sri Lanka, Team India fought back to win the 2nd test. The whole team faced the ire of Indian media after the 1st test and may be that helped them giving a good performance in the next match.
Starting from the toss everything went India’s way. After winning the toss, Kumble elected to bat first and Delhi Daredevils openers proved their captain right by giving a good start to India. Sehwag went on to score a double century, fifth of his career. In this process he broke many records. This was the 11th consecutive hundred he had converted into a 150-plus score. He also became the second Indian to carry his bat through, and passed 5000 Test runs. But all wasn’t good for India. When Sehwag was busy punishing the Sri Lankan bowlers, other batsmen were giving away their wickets to Mendis & Co. None other than Sehwag, Gambhir and Laxman performed well. The Three seniors failed to contribute to the scoreboard. As a result India scored 329 in their 1st innings with Sehwag scoring 61.09% of those runs. As Sri Lankans came on to bat, Harbhajan Singh gave an exceptional performance with the bowl claiming 6 wickets. Lankans ended 1st innings at 292 thanks to captain innings by Jayawardane.
With a lead of 37 runs behind them Indian openers came on to bat. They continued from where they stopped. They both went on to score half centuries. Gambhir again proved himself a good opener for India by scoring a 50 in both the innings supporting his Delhi teammate. The Three seniors failed again in the 2nd innings at 269 giving Lankans a target of 306. innings. Team India ended their 2
This time Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan joined the party by taking initial wickets. Harbhajan completed his 10 wicket haul for the match by claiming 4 wickets in the 2nd innings. India defeated Sri Lanka with a huge margin of 170 runs erasing the bad memories of the 1st test.
Thus India leveled the series 1-1 making the last match at Colombo an interesting one.
