'Spirit of Cricket at its best' - Team India players congratulate retiring Suranga Lakmal after he gets out in Bengaluru Test

The Indian players were seen rushing to shake hands with Suranga Lakmal in the second Test in Kolkata as the latter had already announced that this will be his last international game. Lakmal made his international debut in 2009 and turned into one of the bowling spearheads for Sri Lanka in the longer format, especially in the last five years.

The 35-year-old has already signed a contract with Derbyshire where his former national coach Mickey Arthur recently took over the reins as head coach. Lakmal was recently enquired about why he wanted to retire at a relatively younger age and he responded that it was the best decision considering that Sri Lanka will have enough time in the next two years to groom the young pacers.

The right arm seamer played 69 Tests, 86 ODIs and 11 T20Is in international cricket and picked up 287 international wickets across formats. He also captained the Sri Lankan side in five Tests in which he went on to win three games.

Coming back to the moment when the Indian players rushed to shake hands with Suranga Lakmal, Jasprit Bumrah was the first to do so. Soon after he cleaned up the retiring player, the pacer ran towards Lakmal and congratulated him on a successful career before hugging him as well.

After Bumrah shook hands, it was time for the skipper Rohit Sharma to step in as well as congratulate Lakmal. Virat Kohli who recently achieved the massive landmark of 100 Tests, knows the value of fast bowlers and he paid tribute to the Sri Lankan cricketer as well. Even the rest of the Indian players made sure that they gave a pat on the back to Lakmal as he walked out of the ground for one last time.

Here’s the video of Indian players congratulating Suranga Lakmal

Spirit of Cricket at its best as #TeamIndia congratulate Suranga Lakmal who played his last international match 🤜🤛 #SpiritOfCricket | #INDvSL | @Paytm pic.twitter.com/aa17CK5hqv

— BCCI (@BCCI) March 14, 2022

Meanwhile, India won the second Test by 238 runs despite the skipper Dimuth Karunaratne scoring a century on the tough wicket. The hosts won the series 2-0 under the leadership of Rohit Sharma.