Regular finalists not so long ago, Sri Lanka are no more the same team

India’s dominance over Sri Lanka continued in the first Test after they beat them by an innings and 222 runs at Mohali. Ravindra Jadeja shone with the bat and ball - he scored 175 runs not out and claimed 9 wickets to win the player of the match award.

Yes, Sri Lanka had never won a Test match against India in India - but there was a time when their two legends Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara were playing together and India would find it difficult to beat Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka.

It all changed when Virat Kohli first captained India in Sri Lanka and after going down in the first Test at Galle in 2015, India bounced back to win the next two Test matches and won the series 2/1.

When India toured Sri Lanka again in 2017, they had a clean sweep of all the three Test matches winning the first by 304 runs, the second in Colombo by an innings and 53 runs and the third at Pallekele by an innings and 171 runs. In fact in that series, India was dominant and won the all games in white ball cricket winning the ODI series 5/0 and winning the solitary T20 too.

Such has been the gap now between the two sides that this time India did a clean sweep in the T20 series 3/0 and look likely to win the second Test - a day night affair - at Benglaru starting on 12th March. Sri Lanka do not seem to have the firepower to match the powerful Indian bowling which boasts the likes of Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami in the pace attack which will be further strengthned with Mohammed Siraj coming in as the third pacer for Jayant Yadav backed by Ravichandran Ashwin and Jadeja.

Sri Lanka’s most experienced bowler is Suranga Lakmal who will be playing his last Test match and is the only bowler who has played 69 Tests and with Lahiru Kumara breaking down in the first innings they will hope Dushmantha Chameera can take the mantle of the fast bowling responsibility who has just played 12 Test matches and does not have much experience.

Their batting depends heavily on their captain Dimuth Karunaratne and Angelo Mathews and will hope they can score some runs against the strong Indian bowling attack to make a fight of it.

Sri Lanka is not the team anymore which was once making it to the finals of most ICC tournaments till 2014 after the retirement of Sangakarra, Jayawardene and Muttiah Muralitharan and they seem to be struggling to compete at the highest level.

It will take a miracle for them to stop the Indian juggernaut.