Coming out to bat when India were at a precarious 98 for 5, Pant played a knock for the ages to turn the tables on England and take India to an imposing 338 for 7 at stumps on Friday. His magnificent 111-ball 146 had 19 boundaries and four sixes.
Veteran Achanta Sharath Kamal will lead a 10-member Indian table tennis team during a training tour of Portugal from July 3 to 10 ahead of the upcoming Birmingham Commonwealth Games. The team consists of five men and as many women paddlers, and will be accompanied by two coaches in Raman Subramanian and Anindita Chakraborty.
In his three outings this season, Chopra has improved his personal best twice -- he recorded a 89.30m throw last month at the Paavo Nurmi Games before sending his spear to 89.94m, just 6 cm shy of 90m, at the Diamond League Meet in Stockholm on Thursday.
The tourists, with a first innings lead of 109, bundled out Sri Lanka for 113 in their second innings and got their five-run target in the first over to go 1-0 up in the two-match series.
The opening match on Friday will be played between Spain and Canada. India, ranked No. 8 in the world, will begin their campaign against England on July 3 in Amsterdam. India's best performance in the tournament so far has been a fourth-place finish in the inaugural edition of the tournament in 1974.
The rescheduled fifth Test between India and England will begin in Birmingham today. While most of the pre-match talk of course has been focused on how the two teams stack up against each other and the players who are expected to be the key performers, everyone will have one eye on the weather.