vIndianz.com (Dec. 06, 2009) — India became the number one team in Test rankings following their win against Sri Lanka by an innings and 24 runs in the third and final Test, on Sangakkara Sunday, to settle the three-match series by a 2-0 margin.
Needing just four wickets to witness an emphatic triumph, the hosts took just about 40 minutes to polish off the visiting team’s tail to document their second successive innings victory.
Resuming at 274/6, the Sri Lankans lost their gallant captain Kumar Sangakkara (137) in the very first over and were bundled out for 309 with Zaheer Khan being the pick of the Indian bowlers with figures of 5/72.
The Sunday crowd at the Brabourne Stadium, hosting a Test match following a gap of 36 years, witnessed a significant flash as Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men crowned themselves the number one team.
The crowd erupted into a whirl as Muttiah Muralitharan edged a delivery from Harbhajan Singh to Dhoni to bring down the curtains on the Lankan innings.
The Indian players hugged each other and a happy coach Gary Kirsten greeted them as they returned to the pavilion. The triumph has given India three points in the ICC rankings, taking their on the whole tally to 122 and leaving them in front of South Africa and Sri Lanka in the ICC table.
The teams will at present kit up for two Twenty20 matches in Nagpur and Mohali followed by a five-match One-day series which begins at Rajkot from December 15. The match would be greatest remembered for the blistering 293-run knock that Virender Sehwag played. The right-hander, though, missed out on becoming the first batsman in the game’s history to score three triple tons.
Such was India’s supremacy that Dhoni’s men finished the complete triumph in just 7.4 over this morning. Zaheer hastened Lanka to their destiny by claiming three of the last four wickets to end with his eighth five-wicket innings haul. It was in addition India’s 101st Test win and their fifth at this place in 18 matches.
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