Well Played, Srilanka

Not a very well compiled victory. Yet, Sangakkara would be a happy man. Srilanka, finally proved to be the better team, holding their nerves in pressure situations. All credits to Thilan Samaraveera for his wonderfully carven century and also some last minute heroics from Thissara Perera, which fixed up the match in Srilanka's favour. It was really wonderful to watch Thilan Samaraveera scoring his second ODI career Century. More interesting, is the fact that his previous best score against India was a mere 16 in seven ODI matches. He has proved his calibre by getting through testing situation in adverse conditions.




Earlier, India settled down for a decent total of 279 for the loss of 9 wickets. One should thank Yuvraj Singh for his brilliant innings that helped to take the Indian score above 200. It shows the confidence of the players that even after the loss of Gambhir, Sehwag and Kohli at a very early stage of the innings, India managed to post a pretty decent total on the score board. Ravindra Jadeja too had a nice time with the bat, and scored a quick fire 39 off 34 balls. India started the innings with Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli departing with single digit scores. But, Sehwag seemed to be unmoved. As always, he was in good mood, striking the ball to all corners of the field. He scored a very quick 47 runs off just 31 balls till he fell to Welegedara, caught by Thirimanne. Later on, it was Yuvraj, Dhoni, Suresh Raina and Ravindra Jadeja who helped India out of the crisis.

One interesting thing in the Indian batting was Mahendra Singh Dhoni's innings. He was struggling to get runs in this pitch. Dhoni made 37 runs, facing 70 balls in which he managed to clear the boundary line on just 3 occations. It was unlikely that he got out after having such a long exposure falling to T Perera, caught behind the wicket by Sangakkara. The Indian fans might have been happy that India was able to bat on all the 50 overs, even though the last over didn't prove to be much productive. But any how, the total posted by the Indian team was atleast a 30 runs less than what could've been defended successfully. Issues noticeable in the Indian innings were the regular falling of wickets, lesser maturity shown by the opening set of batsmen and the incapability of maintaining partnerships. Srilankan bowling effort was also not much impressive, apart from Welegedara who scalped 5 wickets including the top Indian batsmen.

The Srilankan reply was pretty inert in the beginning. With their main striker Tilakaratne Dilshan absent, they opened the innings with Tharanga and HDRL Thirimanne. Ashish Nehra was quite impressive with the new ball in his hand. His performance was delightful. It was a tough fate for him today, else there could've been atleast 4 or 5 wickets on his bag. He bowled very beautifully and on many occations the ball swinged away from the batsmen, who were struggling to face Nehra. The very first ball that he bowled was a masterpiece. Wow! that missed the edge of Tharanga's blade by centimeters only. The result would've been in India's favour, given luck didn't help the Srilankan side. Such good was the bowling performance by Nehra in the beginning. But Lanka's innings was put into the right place by the partnership between Kumar Sangakkara and Tilan Samaraweera. Yet another time, Sangakkara showed his excellence in batting. What a gifted player he is! It's always awsome seeing him with the blade. He scored a very well made 60 off 80 balls till Suresh Raina caught him out off the bowling of Harbhajan Singh. Remaining all the credit goes to Perera, who made the path very easy for Srilanka. He scored a very quick 36 runs off a mere 15 balls. He smashed boundaries off anyone who bowled to him. Srilanka went past the score on the completion of the 48th over itself. Bravo Sangakkara and team!