A statistical review of the Colombo Test and the two-match Test series between Sri Lanka and India.
4 Instances of Sri Lanka saving a Test match after following on, including the Colombo Test against India, out of 28 occasions. The previous instance was against West Indies in 2010 at Galle, after which they lost on all ten occasions while following on, until this week.
The Colombo Test was the ninth time India enforced the follow-on against Sri Lanka, but the first time they failed to force a win.
216 Sri Lanka's lead in the second innings is their highest while following on. The 429 for 9 they made is their third-highest total, and the 154 overs they batted are the joint-second most by them while following on.
211 Runs that Sri Lanka added in their second innings after the fall of their sixth wicket. These are the third-most runs added by a team after the fall of the sixth wicket in the following-on innings. Zimbabwe put on 225 against Afghanistan at Abu Dhabi in 2021, while England added 223 against Australia in the 1981 Leeds Test.
1462 Balls that Sri Lanka batted out in the Colombo Test. These are the most balls batted by a team in a men's Test match across their first innings and the follow-on innings since India in the 2009 Napier Test against New Zealand, where they batted out 1643 balls.
On only seven occasions did Sri Lanka bat as many or more balls in a Test match than in the Colombo Test. The 2014 Sharjah Test against Pakistan was the last time they batted that many, having faced 1642 balls across two innings.
3 Batters with twin hundreds in a Test match where their team was asked to follow on, including Sonal Dinusha at Colombo. Vijay Hazare against Australia at Adelaide in 1948 and Andy Flower against South Africa at Harare in 2001 were the previous instances.
1 Batter before Dinusha with 80-plus scores in both innings in consecutive Test matches. Dinusha scored 100 and 84 in the first Test at Galle, before backing it up with twin hundreds in Colombo. Simon Katich was the first to do so, in 2010, against New Zealand at Hamilton and against Pakistan at Lord's.
8 Number of previous instances of a batter scoring three hundreds in a two-match Test series. Aravinda de Silva did it twice, against Pakistan and India in 1997, while Kumar Sangakkara against Bangladesh in 2013 is the other Sri Lankan to do so. All eight previous instances came in either a drawn series or a series-winning effort, unlike Dinusha.
6 Dinusha became only the sixth batter to score three hundreds in a Test series while batting at No. 6 or lower. He is the first Sri Lankan to do so, and also the first to do so in a two-match series.
Dinusha, with his twin hundreds in Colombo, became only the fifth batter to score hundreds in both innings of a Test match while batting at No. 6 or lower. Three of the previous four instances have been by Sri Lankan batters only.
176 Runs scored through sweep shots by Dinusha in the two-match series against India, the most by a batter in a Test series, according to Cricinfo's ball-by-ball logs. The previous highest was 168 by Joe Root against Sri Lanka in 2021. Dinusha attempted 121 sweeps, also the most in a series, bettering Root's 113 sweep shots in that 2021 series.
606 Runs scored by Dinusha in his five-match Test career so far. Among Sri Lankans, only Kamindu Mendis (631) scored more runs in his first five Test matches. Dinusha's tally is also the tenth highest for any batter.
All those runs by Kamindu and Dinusha have come while batting at No. 6 or lower. No other batter has scored over 550 runs while batting at No. 6 or lower in their first five Tests.
2017 The previous instance of a team batting 80 or more overs and losing no more than three wickets on the final day of a Test match in Asia was Sri Lanka against India in Delhi. Sri Lanka batted out 87 overs and lost only two wickets back then, while in Colombo, they lost three in 81.2 overs.