India's skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni combined well with his deputy Yuvraj Singh as the duo roared back into form with fine half-centuries to put a reign on the Lankan lions', guiding India to beat Sri Lanka by two wickets at the Adelaide Oval on Tuesday, keeping India’s hopes alive for making it to the finals of the Commonwealth Bank Triangular Series.
Yuvraj, who has been in the hunt of runs for a long time after landing in Australia, proved his critics wrong as he bludgeoned a brisk 76 off 70 balls that included ten boundaries and one hit over the park while Dhoni played the sheet anchor role to perfection and took successfully India to victory by scoring an unbeaten fifty in just 68 balls.
Chasing the target of 239 set by Sri Lanka, riding on Kumar Sangakkara’s superb 128 (155 balls, 12×4s), India found the target for the loss of eight wickets with five balls to spare. Earlier, Sri Lanka managed to take their score to 238 for the loss six wickets, after some initial hiccups, in their stipulated overs.
With this win, India stay in the contention for the finals by taking their points tally to 12 from six matches to remain at the second spot. Australia tops the chart with 17 points from five matches while Sri Lanka has six from five games.
India needs another win to cement its place in the best-of-three finals, to be played next month. On the other hand, Sri Lanka is in a must-win situation now and they will have to beat Australia on Friday to remain in contention.
India had a disastrous start as they lost master blaster Sachin Tendulkar for duck to Lasith Malinga. Malinga castled Tendulkar stumps. Soon India was reeling at 35 for 3, after Robin Uthappa (10) and Gautam Gambhir (15) made their way back to the pavilion.
Uthappa, who got the chance to bat up in the order, couldn’t stay much in the middle as Sanath Jayasuriya ran him out while in-form Gambhir was caught behind by Kumar Sangakkara off Ishara Amerasinghe.
Then came Yuvraj who steadied the innings well together with young Rohit Sharma 24 (36 balls, 1×4) adding crucial 64 runs off 11.4 overs for the fourth wicket. The southpaw also associated in another vital 50-plus partnership with skipper Dhoni.
They almost had a run a ball partnership 59 off 58 balls for the fifth wicket to bail India out of trouble, after some big setbacks early on, taking the total to 158 for five.
Dhoni displayed some good character and played with lot of responsibility He also stitched 58-run partnership for the sixth wicket with Irfan Pathan, who scored 31runs of 41 balls that included four boundaries.
India had some anxious moments just before the final assault, as they lost quick three wickets in the space of 20 runs, but Dhoni stood firm and romped India home alongwith Ishant. Dhoni fittingly ran off a fine brace off pacer Farveez Maharoof to seal the win.
Earlier, Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene elected to bat. Experienced Sangakkara stabled the innings after losing both the openers Sanath Jayasuriya (0) and Tillakaratne Dilshan (4).
Wicket-keeper Sangakkara and Jayawardene (71, 99 balls, 4×4s, 1×6) played exceptional knocks helping their side to post a fighting total.
Munaf Patel gave India the first breakthrough as he picked up Dilshan in the first over and then effected a run out in the third over of the innings to get rid of danger customer Jayasuriya.
Sri Lanka was reduced to six for two by the end third over after Munaf Patel put up some hard efforts. But to India’s team dismay, Sangakkara and Jayawardene came to the fore as they gave a valuable stand of 153 runs for the third wicket to bail their team out of trouble.
The partnership was broken when Sangakkara’s straight drive touched the fingers of seamer Praveen Kumar en route to stumps, finding unlucky Jayawardene short of the crease on 71.
It was the second time when Lankan batsman got unlucky, as the last wicket had fallen in the same manner. Earlier, Sangakkara’s straight shot also clipped off Munaf’s fingers on its way to stumps finding Jayasuriya short of his crease.
Eventually, Sangakkara caught on the boundary line in an attempt of a big heave at the score of 128 by Praveen off Irfan Pathan. Chamara Silva scored a handy 21 towards the end but it was man of the match Sangakkara’s day as he registered his first ODI century after a gap of one year. India will next play against Australia on Sunday.
SCOREBOARD
Sri Lanka Innings:
Tillakaratne Dilshan c Dhoni b Patel 4 Sanath Jayasuriya run out (Patel) 0 Kumar Sangakkara c Kumar b Pathan 128 Mahela Jayawardene run out (Kumar) 71 Chamara Kapugedera run out (Rohit) 1 Chamara Silva c Uthappa b Harbhajan 21 Farveez Maharoof not out 3 Chaminda Vaas not out 1
Extras: 9 (lb 4, w 4 and nb 1) Total: 238 for six wickets in 50 overs Fall of wickets: 1-4, 2-6, 3-159, 4-161, 5-234 and 6-235 Bowling: Munaf Patel 9 2 38 1 (1w) Ishant Sharma 10 0 44 0 Irfan Pathan 10 0 44 1 (2w) Parveen Kumar 10 0 49 0 (1nb) Harbhajan Singh 10 0 54 1 Yuvraj Singh 1 0 5 0 (1w)
India Innings: Gautam Gambhir c Sangakkara b Amerasinghe 15 Sachin Tendulkar b Malinga 0 Robin Uthappa run out (Jayasuriya) 10 Rohit Sharma c Silva b Muralitharan 24 Yuvraj Singh b Vaas 76 Mahendra Singh Dhoni not out 50 Irfan Pathan b Amerasinghe 31 Praveen Kumar c Jayawardene b Amerasinghe 6 Harbhajan Singh lbw b Malinga 3 Ishant Sharma not out 0
Extras: 24 (lb 14 and w 10) Total: 239 for 8 wickets in 49.1 overs Fall of wickets: 1-2, 2-33, 3-35, 4-99, 5-158, 6-216, 7-229 and 8-236 Bowling: Chaminda Vaas 10 0 27 1 Lasith Malinga 10 1 37 2 (4w) Ishara Amerasinghe 10 0 49 3 (1w) Farveez Maharoof 6.1 0 43 0 (2w) Muttiah Muralitharan 10 0 44 1 (1w) Sanath Jayasuriya 2 0 14 0 Tillakaratne Dilshan 1 0 11 0
Result: India won by two wickets Toss: Sri Lanka won the toss and chose to bat Umpires: Tony Hill (New Zealand) and Peter Parker (Australia)
|
|
Comments:
