Dinusha batted seven hours for 133 not out, and India settled for a 1-0 series win
Sri Lanka began the last day 16 in front with four wickets standing. They batted through all of it, declared, and the Colombo Test was drawn.
Aug 27, 2026
India needed four wickets on the final morning at the Sinhalese Sports Club and they never got the fourth. Sonal Dinusha was still there at the close, 133 not out, when Sri Lanka declared on 429 for 9 and the second Test was drawn. India win the two-match series 1-0.
Sri Lanka batted 154 overs to save it
Sri Lanka resumed on Thursday at 229 for 6, a lead of 16, with a whole day to survive. Dinusha was 7 not out. Keshara Nuwantha, a bowler who had made 18 in the first innings, was on 3.
The pair added 112 for the seventh wicket, all but 11 of it on the last day. Nuwantha’s contribution was 46 from 150 balls, which tells you what kind of morning it was. He fell just after lunch in the 105th over with Sri Lanka 330 for 7, and by then India were bowling to a field set for a nick rather than a plan.
Prabath Jayasuriya made 2 from 28 balls. Lahiru Kumara made 12 from 90. Asitha Fernando faced 24 deliveries without scoring and was still not out when Dhananjaya de Silva called his batters in with a lead of 216 and no time left in the match for anyone to do anything with it.
Dinusha’s second hundred of the Test
Dinusha reached three figures off 196 balls, his slowest of the series and comfortably his most valuable. He was 98 at tea. He finished on 133 from 264 balls, seven hours at the crease, eight fours and two sixes, and he was named Player of the Match in a game his side did not win.
He had already made 103 in the first innings, the one that ended with Sri Lanka 290 all out and 213 behind. So both of his hundreds came in the same Test, and the second of them was scored while his side were following on. Across the series his scores read 100, 84, 103 and 133 not out: 420 runs at an average of 140, more than anyone on either side.
Pasindu Sooriyabandara was the other reason the wall held. He made 80 in the first innings and 92 in the second, stumped by Rishabh Pant off Manav Suthar eight short of a maiden Test hundred. His first three innings in Test cricket now read 0, 80 and 92. Kamindu Mendis chipped in with 55.
Nineteen wickets, and no win
India took 19 wickets in this Test and still could not close it. Shubman Gill used eight bowlers in the second innings, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Dhruv Jurel among them. Suthar was the pick with 3 for 121 from 41 overs, Ravindra Jadeja matched him with 3 for 94 from 38.3, and Mohammed Siraj bowled 15 overs for 26 runs and one wicket on a surface that had stopped offering anything by the fourth afternoon.
Gill’s decision to enforce the follow-on will get picked over, and the pitch is the honest answer to it. India had made 503 for 9 on the same strip, Sri Lanka lost three wickets across the whole of the final day, and rain had already eaten into three of the first four.
What India take home
Devdutt Padikkal was India’s leading run-scorer in the series, with 328 runs across three innings. He made 167 and 44 in the win at Galle and 117 here, two hundreds in three attempts on a tour he only joined because Sai Sudharsan was ruled out with a toe injury.
Jurel finished 115 not out in the first innings, batting through the tail after Pant retired hurt on 3 and came back to make 63. Suthar took 16 wickets in the two Tests, a ten-for at Galle and six more in Colombo.
The World Test Championship maths is simpler. India took 12 points from Galle and four from the draw here, 16 from the series, and Sri Lanka leave with four. India won the series. Sri Lanka found a batter.