India 9, Sri Lanka 0. This is not a football scoreline, but indicates India's dominance over the island nation across all formats in the recently-concluded tour. India beat Sri Lanka 3-0 in the Test series, 5-0 in the ODI format, and wrapped up the tour with another impressive win in the only T20 on Wednesday.
India have emulated Australia's record of 9-0 wins with this shorter-format victory. The Aussies, at their home in 2009-10, had defeated Pakistan 9-0.
India have also managed to eclipse New Zealand's record of 2016-17, where the Kiwis demolished Bangladesh 8-0.
India's 9-0 looks even better than the Australian record as the Men in Blue were the touring team, and defeating Sri Lanka — who understand the conditions better — is no mean feat. All the Test and limited overs players contributed to this "very special" feat.
India were brilliant in all formats, and someone or the other always stood up. India fielded a strong Test side, but even after resting some of their key players in the ODIs, Kohli's team showed brilliant strength.
The India skipper considered this whitewash special as well. "Very special. It hasn't been done before. Credit to the boys. The bench strength is coming up beautifully. We tried a few things, the results are amazing to see," Kohli said in the post-match conference.
The India captain should also be pleased with his individual performance, where he led from the front in the T20 match, scoring a 54-ball 82 to ensure his team ends up 9-0 in the series.
Besides Kohli, Manish Pandey and Yuzvendra Chahal also played brilliant cricket, scoring a half-century and picking up three wickets, respectively, to help India win the T20 contest.
Now, it remains to be seen if India will be able to come up with such level of cricket against Australia in their next series. The highly-anticipated home series against Australia — five ODIs and three T20s — starts Sunday, September 17.
Australia are a much stronger side than Sri Lanka, and one can expect the selectors to pick the best possible squad to beat the Kangaroos.
