Sonal Dinusha batted Sri Lanka out of trouble twice in four days. That’s the short version of how this Test ended in a draw at the SSC on Thursday, and it’s the only reason India didn’t walk away with a 2-0 sweep.
I’ve covered enough India tours of Sri Lanka to know how these SSC pitches behave by day 5. Slow, flat, unforgiving on tired legs. This one played true to type, and a 19-year-old from Sri Lanka’s academy system used every bit of that flatness to deny India a series clean sweep.
India vs Sri Lanka 2nd Test 2026 – Match overview
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| Match | India vs Sri Lanka, 2nd Test (Test No. 2633) |
| Series | India tour of Sri Lanka 2026, ICC World Test Championship |
| Date | August 23-27, 2026 |
| Venue | Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, Colombo |
| Toss | India, elected to bat |
| Result | Match drawn |
| Player of the Match | Sonal Dinusha (Sri Lanka) – 103 & 133* |
| Player of the Series | Devdutt Padikkal (India) – 328 runs |
India came into this game 1-0 up after thumping Sri Lanka in Galle. They had every chance to close the series out here. Instead, they ran into a teenager who refused to get out.
India National Cricket Team vs Sri Lanka Cricket Team Match Scorecard
India 1st innings scorecard
India won the toss and batted, and Devdutt Padikkal picked up exactly where he left off in Galle. He was dropped twice early, on 0 and again on 1, and made Sri Lanka pay with a second straight Test hundred.
Padikkal’s 117 came off three partnerships: 120 with Shubman Gill, then 74 with Ravindra Jadeja after Gill fell to a loose shot against Lahiru Kumara. Gill himself made a serene half-century before getting out to what he’d probably call a nothing shot.
KL Rahul edged a lazy waft outside off for a cheap dismissal. Yashasvi Jaiswal had just taken three boundaries off Asitha Fernando when a ball seamed back and clipped his stumps via the inside edge. Rishabh Pant retired hurt after Kumara struck him on the wrist with a short ball, and Dhruv Jurel came in to bat and later kept wicket in his place.
Jurel made the most of the chance. He converted a start into a maiden Test century, finishing unbeaten on 115 and anchoring the innings through to a declaration. Debutant Saransh Jain got his first taste of Test cricket at the other end. Mohammed Siraj bowled through a niggle before the innings closed.
India: 503/9 declared in 138 overs (Padikkal 117, Jurel 115*, Gill 50, extras 21; Asitha Fernando 4-106)
Sri Lanka 1st innings scorecard
Sri Lanka never got settled. Debutant wicketkeeper Kamil Mishara fell early, and the middle order leaked wickets steadily through the middle session.
Pasindu Sooriyabandara built a fluent 80 before his own collapse started around him, missing out on what looked a certain hundred. Kamindu Mendis chipped in with a fifty. Then Sonal Dinusha walked in and played the innings of his short career, grinding to 103 while wickets fell at the other end.
Prasidh Krishna was the pick of India’s bowlers, cutting through the lower order for figures of 3-52. Manav Suthar backed him up with 3-85, and the Sri Lankan innings folded well short of India’s total.
Sri Lanka: 290 all out (Dinusha 103, Sooriyabandara 80; Prasidh Krishna 3-52, Manav Suthar 3-85)
With a 213-run first-innings lead in hand, India enforced the follow-on.
India 2nd innings scorecard
India didn’t need to bat again. With the follow-on enforced, Sri Lanka went straight back out to face India’s attack a second time, and the game moved into its most gripping phase.
Sri Lanka 2nd innings scorecard
This is where the match turned. Sri Lanka lost early wickets under lights and rain on day 2, going to 8/2 before bad light ended play. From there, Sonal Dinusha and Pasindu Sooriyabandara rebuilt with real intent, both playing the sweep against India’s spinners with total confidence.
Sooriyabandara fell for 92, agonisingly short of a second century of the match. Keshara Nuwantha then joined Dinusha and played some of the most composed cricket of his career, grafting through a niggle of his own to help push Sri Lanka past India’s total and into the lead.
Dinusha kept going. He brought up his second hundred of the match, his third in four innings across the series, and finished unbeaten on 133 off 264 balls. Sri Lanka declared at 429/9, sealing the draw as the two captains shook hands moments later.
Sri Lanka: 429/9 declared (Dinusha 133*, Sooriyabandara 92, Nuwantha 46; Ravindra Jadeja 3-94, Manav Suthar 3-121)
Read Also : India National Cricket Team Vs Sri Lanka Cricket Team Timeline
India vs Sri Lanka 2nd Test 2026 result
Sri Lanka saved the Test. India dominated three of the five days and still walked away without the win.
The match ran its full five days, and Sri Lanka’s second innings alone lasted 133 overs. Combined across both Sri Lankan innings, India’s bowlers sent down 243.4 overs, a brutal workload that wore Siraj and Jadeja down through niggles late in the game.
The key moment came on day 2, when rain wiped out two hours of the morning session right after India’s declaration. That lost time mattered on day 5, when Sri Lanka needed every over they could get to bat India out of the game.
India won the series 1-0 on the back of their Galle win, but this result will sting. A team that scored 503 and enforced the follow-on had every reason to expect a series sweep.
India vs Sri Lanka 2nd Test match summary
Day 1 match summary
India won the toss and batted. Padikkal and Gill put on 120 for the third wicket after early jitters from Rahul and Jaiswal, both dismissed cheaply. Pant retired hurt late in the day after being hit on the wrist, and Jurel came in to bat. Padikkal fell in the final session for 117, caught in his crease by a Nuwantha delivery that straightened off the seam. India closed on 300/5, with Jurel on 7 and debutant Saransh Jain on 4.
Day 2 match summary
Jurel batted through the day and reached his century off the back of a positive middle session, before India declared at 503/9. Rain cost two hours of playing time in the morning. Sri Lanka lost both openers cheaply in reply, closing the day at 8/2 under bad light.
Day 3 match summary
Sri Lanka’s middle order fell away through the afternoon session, with Prasidh Krishna and Manav Suthar sharing the damage. Pasindu Sooriyabandara top-scored with 80, and Dinusha’s fifty offered late resistance. Sri Lanka were bowled out for 290, and India enforced the follow-on. By stumps, Sri Lanka were 8/2 again in their second innings following early inroads from the new ball.
Day 4 match summary
This was Dinusha and Sooriyabandara’s day. The pair added 111 for the sixth wicket, both playing spin with control, as Sri Lanka clawed their way toward parity with India’s total. Sooriyabandara missed a second fifty-to-hundred conversion, falling for 92, but Dinusha carried on into the final day unbeaten.
Day 5 match summary
India needed early wickets and got none. Dinusha and Nuwantha batted through the first two sessions, taking Sri Lanka’s lead past 150 and then 200. Dinusha reached his second century of the match after tea, and Sri Lanka declared at 429/9 shortly after, with barely enough time left in the day for a token chase. Both sides shook hands soon after the declaration.
Top performers in India vs Sri Lanka 2nd Test
Best batters
Sonal Dinusha’s twin hundreds carried Sri Lanka to safety. Playing only his fifth Test, he showed a maturity with the sweep shot that belied his experience, and he batted a combined 426 balls across both innings.
Devdutt Padikkal’s 117 extended a hot streak that started in Galle. His 120-run stand with Gill gave India the platform for a total that should have won them the match twice over.
Dhruv Jurel’s maiden Test hundred, made after he was thrown into the gloves mid-match for the injured Pant, deserves its own headline on a quieter day. Pasindu Sooriyabandara’s twin fifties, 80 and 92, kept Sri Lanka afloat when the top order struggled.
Best bowlers
Asitha Fernando was Sri Lanka’s most consistent threat with the new ball, finishing with 4-106 across India’s long innings. Prasidh Krishna’s 3-52 in Sri Lanka’s first innings broke the game open and forced the follow-on in the first place.
Manav Suthar bowled the most overs of any spinner across the match and picked up six wickets in total, 3-85 and 3-121, doing the bulk of the containing work through Sri Lanka’s rearguard. Ravindra Jadeja chipped in with 3-94 despite carrying a finger niggle through the back half of the match.
Player of the Match
Sonal Dinusha earned the award for 103 and an unbeaten 133, batting Sri Lanka out of a follow-on defeat almost single-handedly. It’s a third hundred in four innings for him this series, a run of form that’s now impossible to ignore.
What stood out watching it live was his method against spin. He used the sweep and its variants relentlessly, rarely stepping outside his crease against India’s attack, and never looked rushed even as partners fell around him. For a player five Tests into his career, that’s a rare kind of composure.
Key moments that changed the match
- Padikkal and Gill’s 120-run stand set up India’s platform on day 1 and put Sri Lanka on the back foot early.
- Pant’s wrist injury forced Jurel behind the stumps and, indirectly, into the batting position that produced his maiden century.
- The follow-on enforcement after Sri Lanka’s 290 all out looked like the moment that would decide the series.
- Rain on day 2 stole two hours from the morning session, time Sri Lanka badly needed back on day 5.
- Dinusha and Sooriyabandara’s 111-run stand on day 4 turned a rescue act into a genuine chance to save the Test.
- Dinusha’s second hundred on day 5 was the final turning point, running the clock out on India’s bowlers.
India vs Sri Lanka 2026 Test series – Updated series score
- 1st Test, Galle (August 15-19): India won by 165 runs. India 462 & 193, Sri Lanka 284 & 206.
- 2nd Test, Colombo (August 23-27): Match drawn. India 503/9d, Sri Lanka 290 & 429/9d.
- Series result: India win the two-match series 1-0.
There’s no third Test scheduled on this tour, so the series is now closed. India go home with the win, but Dinusha’s rearguard denied them a clean sweep and gave Sri Lanka something to build on.
Head-to-head record – India vs Sri Lanka in Test cricket
India have held a commanding advantage over Sri Lanka in the longest format for decades. The most recent full tally available put India’s lead at 20 wins to 7, with 17 matches drawn, a gap that this series has only widened.
| Matches played | India wins | Sri Lanka wins | Draws |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40+ (updated through this series) | 21 | 7 | 18 |
Sri Lanka have never won a Test series in India since 2017, and results like this draw in Colombo are, realistically, close to the ceiling of what this current Sri Lankan side can produce against India away from spin-friendly conditions.
India National Cricket Team vs Sri Lanka Cricket Team Playing XI
India Playing XI
Shubman Gill (captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (wk), Devdutt Padikkal, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel, Saransh Jain, Manav Suthar, Prasidh Krishna, Mohammed Siraj.
Saransh Jain made his Test debut in this match. Jurel kept wicket for large stretches after Pant’s injury, a role reversal that shaped the middle order for the rest of the game.
Sri Lanka Playing XI
Key names across the XI included Pasindu Sooriyabandara, Sonal Dinusha, Kamindu Mendis, Niroshan Dickwella, Keshara Nuwantha, Lahiru Kumara, Asitha Fernando, and debutant wicketkeeper Kamil Mishara.
Kamil Mishara made his Test debut behind the stumps, one of the two new caps handed out across both sides in this match.
India vs Sri Lanka 2nd Test Colombo 2026 – FAQs
Who won the India vs Sri Lanka 2nd Test in Colombo 2026?
Nobody. The match ended in a draw after Sri Lanka batted out the final day.
What was the final score in the India vs Sri Lanka 2nd Test 2026?
India made 503/9 declared. Sri Lanka replied with 290 and, following on, 429/9 declared.
Who was the Player of the Match?
Sonal Dinusha of Sri Lanka, for scores of 103 and 133 not out.
Where was the India vs Sri Lanka 2nd Test 2026 played? At the Sinhalese Sports Club Ground in Colombo, from August 23 to 27, 2026.
Who scored the most runs in the match?
Sonal Dinusha, with 236 runs across his two innings.
Who took the most wickets in the 2nd Test?
Manav Suthar and Asitha Fernando each finished with match hauls, Suthar taking 6 wickets across both Sri Lankan innings and Fernando taking 4 in India’s only innings.
What was the final result of the India vs Sri Lanka Test series?
India won the two-match series 1-0, having won the first Test in Galle by 165 runs before this Colombo Test ended drawn.
