Draw held today in Asian Elite: Who will face Pakhtakor and Neftchi?

By the end of the third day of the match in Galle, the Indian team held a comfortable advantage, leading their opponents by 178 runs. However, the Indian team had the option to give Sri Lanka a follow-on if they failed to score more than 200 runs.

But one mistake on the field caused the entire calculation of the Indian team to be disrupted. If Kael Rohul had not missed this chance, the Sri Lankan team would not have reached the mark of 200 runs in the first innings.

The incident occurred during the 36th over of Sri Lanka's innings. Indian spinner Manav Sutthar bowled an excellent flighted delivery that bypassed Niroshan Dickwela. The ball, touching the outer edge of the bat, quickly flew towards the slot where Kael Rohul was positioned. Rohul attempted to catch the ball by reaching right, but due to the high speed, the ball slipped from his hands.

At that moment, Dickwela was only scoring 20 runs. The dropped catch gave Sri Lanka a chance for a revival. Earlier, the team was struggling, having only 5 wickets down with a total of 90 runs, in a very weak position. Among the dismissed players were Udara (27), Chandimal (4), Chamindu Mendis (14), and captain Danjaya Dissanayake (21).

After Rohul failed to catch the ball, Dickwela took the initiative along with Sonal Dinusha. They built a historic partnership of 146 runs for the sixth wicket. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Dickwela scored 80 runs off 115 balls. Sonal Dinusha demonstrated magnificent play, spending over four and a half hours on the field and scoring 100 runs.

Thanks to these two players, Sri Lanka managed to score 284 runs, exceeding the required threshold of 263 runs for a follow-on and avoiding a major humiliation. As for the Indian bowlers, Manav Sutthar took the most—4 wickets. Ravindra Jadeja achieved 3 wickets, while Prasidh Krishna, Mohammed Siraj, and Kuldeep Yadav each took one wicket.

Rain started on the third day after the completion of the first innings, and the umpires declared the match over earlier than planned. Now India will take the field in its second innings with an advantage of 178 runs. Despite the advantage remaining with India, the ball missed by Rohul could prove critical for the Indian team.

For Indian field coach Subhipa Ghosh, this is his first visit with the team, and now the responsibility falls on him to improve the level of fielding in the Indian team. Often, such small errors lead to the complete opposite result of the match, so the Indian team aims to learn from these mistakes and improve its fielding standard.