Former Indian Test opener Aakash Chopra said the drawn second Test match against Sri Lanka at Colombo is almost as bad as a loss. India had Sri Lanka on the mat as the hosts were leading by 16 runs at the end of the fourth day’s play but had only four wickets in hand in the second innings.

However, Sonal Dinusha once again came up with a brilliant performance, scoring an unbeaten knock of 133 runs off 264 balls. Sri Lanka ended the day’s play at 429-9 before the players decided to shake hands for a draw.

With this draw, India slipped to a PCT of 51.52, and their path to the WTC final has become more challenging.

“Let’s first talk about the impact of us not being able to win this game on WTC. We have not lost. We have won the series. We have maintained our impeccable record against Sri Lanka, but this drawn game is as good as a win for Sri Lanka. For us, this drawn game is not really a loss, but it’s almost equal to a loss,” Aakash Chopra said on his YouTube Channel.

Chopra highlighted that India got 66.67% of the points from the series after their 1-0 win, but the expectations were to win by 2-0.

“We have got four points. So it’s not bad. It would have been only 50 percent points had we lost, and it is 66.67 percent. So we have gained something, but it’s not good enough because Sri Lanka was a tour where you were hoping to get 100 percent points,” he observed.

On the other hand, the renowned commentator highlighted that India lost many overs because of rain. In all of the first four days, rain arrived to play killjoy at the fag end of the day at Colombo.

“We lost so many overs in this match because of rain, and India had to enforce the follow-on because of that. We bowled nearly 90 overs in the first innings. After 90 overs, you generally say, ‘Let’s not enforce the follow-on.’ Basically, the weather forced our hand,” he said.

India won the two-match Test series by 1-0 as they had won the Galle Test by 165 runs.