'Special shoutout to Sonal Dinusha': Gambhir praises Sri Lanka batter’s gritty knock

New Delhi: India head coach Gautam Gambhir on Friday gave a special shoutout to Sri Lanka’s breakout batter Sonal Dinusha for his exceptional, match-saving performance for the hosts in the recent second Test at the SSC Ground in Colombo.

Gambhir also praised his own side's character and mental toughness following the 1-0 series win. "Test cricket needs character, patience and mental toughness that’s shown by our boys! Special shoutout to Sonal Dinusha for his exceptional performance!" Gambhir posted on his ‘X’ account on Friday.

The left-handed Dinusha single-handedly thwarted India's victory push in the second Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC), which ended in a draw on Thursday. Despite missing out on full World Test Championship (WTC) points in the final game, India clinched the two-match series 1-0, having won the opening fixture at Galle by 165 runs.

Dinusha enjoyed a historic, record-breaking series with the bat by accumulating 420 runs across four innings, including three centuries. Batting at number six, he scored 100 and 84 in the opening Test at Galle International Stadium, followed by 103 in Sri Lanka's first innings in Colombo.

After being made to follow on, Sri Lanka found themselves in deep trouble before Dinusha struck another heroic knock – an undefeated 133 off 264 balls and take them to a hard-fought draw on Thursday. He also joined forces with Keshara Nuwantha to stitch a 112-run seventh-wicket stand.

With that gritty batting performance, Dinusha became the fifth cricketer and the fourth from Sri Lanka to register twin hundreds in a Test match while coming out to bat at number six or lower than that.

Dinusha also became the eighth Sri Lanka batter to score centuries in both innings of a Test after Aravinda de Silva (twice), Kumar Sangakkara (twice), Duleep Mendis, Asanka Gurusinha, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Dhananjaya de Silva and Kamindu Mendis.

He’s also the eighth batter to register three centuries in a two-game Test series, the joint-most for any men’s batter and just the third for Sri Lanka after de Silva (twice) and Sangakkara.

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