Colombo: India captain Virat Kohli on Monday congratulated retiring Sri Lankan great Kumar Sangakkara on a glittering career and said it has been his pleasure playing with the batting maestro.

“I just want to congratulate Kumar again on a wonderful career. I have spoken a lot about him, everyone has, in the last week, but I can’t help saying it again that it has been an absolute pleasure playing with you,” Kohli said at the post-match presentation ceremony of the second Test where India beat Sri Lanka by 278 runs to level the three-match series 1-1.

Speaking about the thumping victory, Kohli said it was a team effort where everyone chipped in.

“Came close twice before, once in Adelaide, once in Galle. We played really good cricket in both those Tests, if we had done it for one more session (things might have been different)… Commendable effort to regroup so soon and putting up this show. Rahul (Lokesh Rahul) takes up the gloves because (Wriddhiman) Saha is injured, and he takes a blinder first ball. That is an example of how everybody chipped in,” Kohli said.

The Indian skipper also praised allrounder Stuart Binny for bowling well in the first innings where he picked up a wicket.

“Everyone apart from Stuart bowled today. As I said, once we took those early wickets, we wanted to bowl attacking lines and didn’t want to lose time. In the first innings you have to applaud Stuart because on that pitch he bowled great control to keep my other bowlers fresh,” he said.