Rishabh Pant`s belligerent knock of 96 and Hanuma Vihari`s 58 along with contributions from Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja helped hosts score 357/6 at stumps on day-1 here at the PCA IS Bindra stadium.
Resuming the post-tea session at 199/4 Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer batted sensibly as India crosses the 200-run mark and the duo notched up a fifty partnership. Shreyas Iyer was looking good but was dismissed leg before wicket by Dhananjaya de Silva for 27 to leave India at 228/5 breaking the 53-run partnership.
Pant carried on kept scoring runs at a brisk pace by hitting boundaries and went on to score his 8th Test half-century. Ravindra Jadeja who was making a comeback into the Test team after recovering from injury showed little signs of rust and gave company to Pant from the other end.
Pant-Jadeja duo notched up a fifty partnership. Wicket-keeper batter Pant became aggressive after his half-century and started taking the Lankan spinners to the cleaners hitting some big sixes against them. Pant along with Jadeja took the team`s total beyond the 300-run mark and notched up a 100-run partnership. Rishabh Pant missed on a century as he was cleaned bowled for 96 by pacer Suranga Lakmal.
Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin from there on ensured that there was no further loss of wicket as India ended day-1 at 357/6. Jadeja remained unbeaten on 45 while Ashwin was unbeaten on 10.
Earlier in the day captain, Rohit Sharma won the toss and decided to bat first, India started off well with openers Rohit and Agarwal, thrashing the Lankan bowlers. The duo took the hosts to the 50-run mark in just 9 overs.
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