Sri Lanka beat Zimbabwe & broke a UNIQUE record of India. Find out what!

India held the former record which was broken, India had created that record in 2008 against England in Chennai, they scored 387 to win

By: Ankit Banerjee |
July 20, 2017 1:45 pm

Sri Lanka won by 4 wickets against Zimbabwe and crushed an unique record of India, in the process. Asela Gunaratne with his unbeaten 80 is the hero for the Islanders. They broke a unique record of India that is chasing the highest total in a fourth innings to win a Test in India. India held the former record, in 2008 they chased down a mammoth total against England in Chennai, they scored 387 to win on a crumbling wicket on the last day of the Test, thanks to Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh’s heroics. It is also the fifth highest run chase in the history of the game. Only four teams, West Indies, India, South Africa and Australia have managed to chase a bigger total in Tests.

Zimbabwe set the Lankans a target of 388 runs. The Sri Lankans were 203 for 5 and were looking down the barrel. It was Niroshan Dickwella and Gunaratne who came together to see the Lankans to a spot of safety before the latter was dismissed for 81 by Williams. This is a big revenge-avenged for the Lankans who had recently lost to the same side resulting into Angelo Mathews stepping down as captain of the side.

Sri Lanka pull off the fifth highest ever chase in Test cricket to break Zimbabwe hearts and win a thrilling #SLvZim Test by 4 wickets pic.twitter.com/GcI1cDKJo1

— ICC (@ICC) July 18, 2017

Credit also needs to be given to Sikander Raza to bail Zimbabwe out of a precarious situation and set up an improbable win. It was a precarious situation because at a certain point in the second innings, Zimbabwe were reduced to 23 for 4 and soon that became 59 for 5. That is when Sikander Raza scored a splendid 127 to put the Zimbabweans in a position of dominance.

Zimbabwe haven’t lost while defending 200+ in 4th innings since 2000 while Sri Lanka haven’t won chasing 175+ in last 10 years. #SLvZIM

— Sampath Bandarupalli (@SampathStats) July 16, 2017

This is turning out to be a great game #SLvZIM , whatever be it test cricket is the true test of mettle.

— Ashwin Ravichandran (@ashwinravi99) July 18, 2017

This was a match which was closely followed by the big names from international cricket like Ravichandran Ashwin kept a close watch on the match, that is exactly what his tweet suggests.

Brief Scores:
Zimbabwe 356 all out (Craig Ervine 160, Malcolm Waller 36; Rangana Herath 1 for 116, Asela Gunaratne 2 for 28) & 377 all out (Sikander Raza 127, Malcolm Waller 68; Rangana Herath 6 for 133, Dilruwan Perera 3 for 95) lost to Sri Lanka 346 all out (Upul Tharanga 71, Dinesh Chandimal 55; Graeme Cremer 5 for 125, Sean Williams 2 for 62) & 391 for 6 (Niroshan Dickwella 81, Asela Gunaratne 80; Graeme Cremer 4 for 150, Sean Williams 2 for 142) by 4 wickets