Virat Kohli declares in anger as Sri Lankan players find excuses to stop play — WATCH

Virat Kohli did not seem to like Sri Lankan players halting play over and over again which led to his animated gesture of declaring India's first innings

Virat Kohli missed out on yet another triple century in Test cricket. Though this time it seemed, Kohli was determined to play the longest Test innings of his career. But, Sri Lankan players halted the play several times as they struggled with smog at Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium, Delhi. The Sri Lankan players were wearing masks on Day 2 of the Test and were constantly asking on-field Umpires to stop play. This disrupted with Kohli’s concentration and led to his wicket as he was trapped in front of the stumps by Lakshan Sandakan.

Even after two quick wickets of Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin, Sri Lankan players continued to struggle on the ground and a few left the field as well. The play was halted over and over again as Chandimal was keen on talking about his players’ health condition.

The series of events took an ugly turn when India’s head coach, Ravi Shastri had to come on the field and have a few words with the umpires.

Kohli seemed to get frustrated with every passing time as he declared India’s innings. He signalled Ravindra Jadeja and Wriddhiman Saha to come back to the dressing room.  Jadeja and Saha applauded Kohli’s strong decision from the ground. Surprisingly, Niroshan Dickwella acknowledged the decision by clapping. Kohli’s actions were quite clear as he felt that now Indian fielders will take the field as Sri Lankan fielders were reluctant to stay on the field.

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Here’s the video of declaration –

Here are a few Twitter reactions to Kohli’s animated decision to declare –

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India declared their first innings after scoring 536 runs for 7 wickets in the 128th over. The incident seemed to fill Indian bowlers with aggression as Mohammed Shami took the wicket of Dimuth Karunaratne off the first ball of Sri Lanka’s innings. Dhananjaya de Silva too got out early as Ishant Sharma picked up his wicket and it seems like more will follow as the game progresses.

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