India's lower order continues to shine and other key talking points from day two of Sri-Lanka-India Colombo Test

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  • India's Ravichandra Ashwin entered an elite club on Friday.

    India’s batsmen dominated the second day of the second Test against Sri Lanka at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo on Friday.

    It was a tough day in the field for Dinesh Chandimal’s men as the visitors carried on their excellent work from Thursday to register a massive first innings total of 622-9d.

    Sri Lanka then finished the day on 50-2.

    We look at the talking points as Virat Kohli and his number one ranked Indian side built on their 1-0 series lead.

    SRI LANKA OPENERS SHOW THE WAY

    After the hosts’ best bowler in Galle, Nuwan Pradeep, was ruled out from taking the field due to a hamstring injury, Chandimal threw the new ball to opening batsman Dimuth Karunaratne to bowl his gentle seamers in just the second over of the day.

    In the final delivery of the over, Karunaratne wrapped the well set Cheteshwar Pujara on the pads only for umpire Bruce Oxenford to deny his vociferous appeal.

    The opener had been denied his maiden wicket on Thursday after a review from KL Rahul overturned the leg-before wicket decision but a similar review, this time from Chandimal, would not deny Karunaratne his maiden Test scalp.

    The replays showed that the ball was clipping the top of Pujara’s left stump to end the right-hander’s 232-ball vigil, worth 133 runs.

    ASHWIN JOINS ELITE COMPANY

    Ashwin had completed a milestone in the Galle Test by making his 50th appearance for India and he completed another one on Friday when he launched a towering six over long-off when on 48.

    The six runs took the all-rounder to his 12th half-century in Test cricket but more importantly, it carried Ashwin past the 2,000 run mark in Tests.

    With this, the off-spinner joins an elite club of 15 all-rounders to have taken 200 Test wickets and scored 2,000 runs. It’s taken Ashwin 51 Tests to reach that milestone, only Kapil Dev (50 Tests), has got there quicker for the Men in Blue.

    INDIA’S LOWER ORDER CONTINUES TO SHINE

    While there were six scores of 50 or more in the Indian innings, it was the lower order which shined the brightest on Friday. Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Wriddhiman Saha all hit fifties.

    The latter half of India’s batting line-up, positions six to 11, has been on a real roll since the start of 2016.

    Indeed, collectively, they have the best batting average out of all Test-playing nations (3,238 runs at an average of 32.38 from 19 contests).

    England are second on that list with 4,771 runs at an average of 30.78 from 21 Tests.

    The productivity of the Indian lower middle-order and tail has been crucial in their ascent to the top of the Test rankings.

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