India's dominance over Sri Lanka in numbers
India recorded their first away Test series victory since 2011 by beating Sri Lanka by 117 runs in the third and final Test. Cheteshawar Pujara was awarded the Man of the Match for his unbeaten knock of 145 in the first innings while Ravichandran Ashwin picked up the Man of the Series award after he claimed 21 wickets in the three Test matches.
India were undoubtedly the dominant team in the series and here is a look at the key numbers which highlights that fact.
India's bowling brigade
60 – India's bowlers picked up all 60 wickets on offer in the three-Test series. India has accomplished this feat of bowling out the opposition every time in a three-Test series only once before, more than two decades ago.
36 – India's lead spinners in the series, Ravichandran Ashwin and Amit Mishra, finished the series with 36 wickets between them, which is 8 more than Sri Lanka's combination of Rangana Herath and Tharindu Kaushal.
16.81 – Ashwin and Mishra's averages make for impressive reading - 18.09 and 15 respectively. The Indian duo thus recorded a mean average of 16.81 runs for every wicket in the series. The Sri Lankan pair's mean average is more than double that at 34.32.
31.6 – Sri Lanka's most effective bowler in terms of strike rate was Dhammika Prasad, picking up a wicket every 44 balls. Ashwin, Mishra and Ishant Sharma's strike rates in the series are all better than Prasad's. Ashwin and Mishra had strike rates of 32.8 and 31.6 balls per dismissal while Ishant Sharma finished the series with a strike rate of 41.5.
India's batting success
4 – India's terrible batting performance in the 2nd innings at Galle cost them the first Test match when they were dismissed for 112. India's next lowest score in the series came in the 2nd innings at the SSC where they managed to aggregate 274. Sri Lanka scored less than this in four of their six innings in the series with scores of 134, 183, 201 and 268.
1 – Sri Lanka have batted for more than 100 overs in an innings only once in the series. They played 108 overs scoring 306 runs at the P Sara Oval in Colombo. On the contrary, India has occupied the crease for more than 100 overs thrice in the series and also declared in the 2nd innings of the 2nd Test, having batted 91 overs.
1st - India cashed in whenever given an opportunity to bat first in a Test match. India made 393 and 312 in the two Test matches played at Colombo when they batted first. Sri Lanka batting first at Galle could only manage 183.
5 – Out of the 8 centuries scored in the series, 5 belonged to Indian batsmen. Sri Lanka had just two centurions - Dinesh Chandimal and Angelo Mathews, with the Sri Lankan skipper scoring two centuries.
3 – KL Rahul, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ishant Sharma are the only Indian players who featured in all the three Tests and averaged less than 25 with the bat. For Sri Lanka, six players fall under the same category but most importantly, three of them are top order batsman - Lahiru Thirimanne, JK Silva and Dimuth Karunaratne. Also Kumar Sangakkara and Jehan Mubarak who played the first two Tests averaged under 25. India's Wriddhiman Saha who also played only in the first two Tests averaged 43.66.
3 – All of the three highest partnerships in the series belong to Indian batsmen. Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli put on 227 runs for the 3rd wicket at Galle, KL Rahul and Kohli aggregated 164 for the 3rd wicket at the P Sara Oval while Murali Vijay and Ajinkya Rahane combined for a tally of 140 for the 2nd wicket at the same venue.
192, 87, 111 – India's first innings leads in the three Test matches. Sri Lanka was always behind the eight ball trailing India by 130 runs on average after the first two innings of a Test match.