The Australia vice-captain gained one place to share the ninth spot with New Zealand’s Ross Taylor, while Marsh, who struck the first century for Australia on the Sri Lanka tour in Colombo, has jumped 13 places to reach the 33rd rank. Kumar Sangakkara, perhaps the finest batsman Sri Lanka has ever produced, played 134 Tests and never tasted victory against Australia.
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Herath, 38, took the final wicket of Nathan Lyon to trigger wild celebrations in the Sri Lankan camp.
It was the third time in a row that the Australians had lost all of their Tests in away series against teams from the sub-continent.
Playing in just his third Test, de Silva smashed 10 boundaries during his 74-ball knock, after scoring a century in the first innings.
Runs added by Australia’s No. 3, 4, 5 & 6 combined in this innings – their lowest in a Test inns vs SL.
Sri Lanka’s 3-0 whitewash of Australia means that Steven Smith’s team has fallen from No 1 to third, with 108 points.
Colombo Test centurions Dinesh Chandimal and Dhananjaya de Silva have also made significant gains in the ICC Player rankings for Test batsmen.
David Warner shrugged off a poor series to score 68 but that wasn’t almost enough to save Australia. India will need to be watchful as its team selection wasn’t up to the mark in the last test. India had dropped Cheteswar Pujara and picked up the inconsistent Rohit Sharma who again failed to prove his selection.
Australia put on 77 for the opening wicket – by far the best of either side in the series – before Shaun Marsh was brilliantly caught by Kusal Mendis at short leg, parrying the ball up before twisting and taking a one-handed grab.
While urging his side to score as much as they could, Silva revealed that the strategy is to notch up big second-innings total in order to throw Australia out of the game, Sport24 reported.
India registered a 237-run win in the third Test and took an unassailable 2-0 lead in the four-match series, after winning the first Test by an innings and 92 runs, the second ending in a draw.
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I think Sri Lanka have played some great cricket over this series.
