Riding on the back of Cheteshwar Pujara’s and Ajinkya Rahane’s unbeaten tons, visitors India took control of the first day of the second Test against Sri Lanka in Colombo on Thursday.
Virat Kohli’s men were well placed at 344-3 when stumps were drawn at the Sinhalese Sports Club.
As top ranked India assert their dominance over Sri Lanka, we look at the three key talking points from the action.
The 29-year-old marked his 50th appearance in the whites of India in style by scoring an unbeaten Test century, his 13th in total. After the early departure of Shikhar Dhawan, Pujara was a little shaky at the start and almost gifted a catch to slip when he was batting on just one run.
Slowly and gradually though, in typical fashion, the Indian batsman took command of his crease and worked the spinners around with his wrist work.
En-route to his unbeaten hundred, the Rajkot-born No.3 made it to 4,000 Test runs – becoming the third-fastest Indian to do so.
It’s taken just 84 innings for the batter to reach that landmark, placing him on par with Rahul Dravid and behind Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar.
This was also Pujara’s third consecutive first innings ton against the islanders in Sri Lanka.
Hat-trick of first-innings hundreds for Pujara against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka
— Cricbuzz (@cricbuzz) August 3, 2017
145* at SSC, 2015
153 at Galle, 2017
100* at SSC, 2017#SLvIND pic.twitter.com/dZG5rHUxcI
Ever since his double ton against Bangladesh at the start of the year, the Indian skipper has had a torrid time with the bat with only one score above 50 in his previous nine innings.
The sole saving grace for Kohli was the unbeaten ton he scored in the second innings of the opening Test at Galle.
On Thursday, the Delhi-born batsman joined Pujara in the middle after the run out of KL Rahul. Kohli was watchful early on against the Sri Lankan bowling as he inched forward to 13 runs. Left arm spinner Rangana Herath had been tossing the ball up all day to the batsman but to no avail.
However, in the 39th over, Kohli tried to cut a quicker, much flatter delivery from Herath but could only edge it to first slip where Angelo Matthews produced an excellent reflex catch.
Kohli watches on after getting dismissed cheaply.
It has not been a good Test season so far for King Kohli and he will be looking to make amends in the second innings.
Indian opener Rahul had returned to take his place in the side after missing the Galle Test due to a viral fever. He took no time in getting back to his best as he reached his sixth consecutive and eighth Test fifty.
Rahul and Pujara had put on a 53-run stand after the fall of Dhawan and were ticking along nicely only for disaster to strike with the score at 109-1.
VIDEO : Angry KL Rahul walks back after getting run-out in the second test #SLvIND https://t.co/VZ9eoLsUwV
— CricFit (@CricFit) August 3, 2017
Rahul pushed a tossed up Herath delivery to the left of extra cover and took off for a single immediately. Pujara responded to the call but changed his mind, belatedly leaving the Karnataka batsman stranded half way as Niroshan Dickwella removed the bails.
A visibly frustrated Rahul reminded the non-striker that it was his call as he made his way back to the pavilion.
