India have registered a historic win over Sri Lanka and have now ended the 22-year long drought of winning a Test series at the Lankan Island. India achieved the stunning series win under the leadership of their new Test skipper Virat Kohli. This win is not going to be ephemeral as this will stay in the minds of the fans and cricket lovers for a long time.
Although it is too early to judge Kohli's leadership qualities at this juncture, he has lead this fancy and young Indian side right from the front.
In spite of taking several injury hits in the form of Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay and Wriddhiman Saha, the Indian side did not bow down in front of the Lankans.
Throughout the series, they were like roaring blokes just like interim director Ravi Shastri had mentioned ahead of the second Test match at the P Sara Oval.
There were a lot of positive takeaways after India's scintillating victory against Sri Lanka including Ishant Sharma's form, Ravichandran Ashwin's overseas record, Amit Mishra's all-round performance, Cheteshwar Pujara's comeback and many more.
Below listed are seven such crucial facts you need to know:
Did You Know?
- This is the first time that India won an away Test series (3 matches) after losing the 1st Test - Ajit Wadekar and Sourav Ganguly also won, but at home soil.
- Kohli has become the youngest Indian Test captain (26 years 300 days) to win an away series surpassing Kapil Dev's record (27 years 168 days).
- The last time India won a Test series in the foreign soil was in 2011 against West Indies.
- India's first victory on Sri Lankan soil after 22 years is their 16th series win away from home. The last time India won a Test series in Sri Lanka against the hosts was under the captaincy of Mohammad Azharuddin in 1993.
- After Kapil Dev (434), Zaheer (311) and Srinath (236), Ishant is the fourth Indian pacer to get to 200 wickets. From being the leader of trolls on social media to the king of trends on Twitter, this lanky Indian pacer has transformed in an outstanding fashion. The experts of the game believe that Ishant was at his sublime best as he continued to bowl with a precision throughout the three Test matches.
- Amit Mishra is the first Indian to score 150+ runs and take 15 wickets in a Test series of 3 or fewer Tests. Previous best all-round performance by an Indian spinner came from Ravichandran Ashwin with 121 runs and 22 wickets against West Indies in India in 2011-12. Former legendary all-rounder of England, Ian Botham achieved this feat thrice in his coveted career.
- Ravichandran Ashwin gets the fourth Man of the Series award in his 28-matches Test career. No other player has achieved this feat in these many matches in their careers. Saeed Ajmal has three 'Man of the Series' awards in 35 Test matches.
