After winning the toss and electing to bat first, India put on a match winning total of 375 runs on the board, courtesy a double hundred run stand between Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, both of them scoring their individual tons. After a middle order collapse of some kind, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Manish Pandey’s innings ensured India end at 375. This meant for a team which had already lost their previous 5 ODI’s, half the game was over and Sri Lanka’s poor batting performance meant that Sri Lanka ended up on the losing side the sixth consecutive time. For India, it was another good day at the office. Let us have a look at a few defining moments.
- Sri Lanka gets Dhawan early
After having been asked to bowl first, Sri Lanka got the wicket of Shikhar Dhawan early which was a great start, given the kind of form he has been lately, Dhawan’s wicket was important and that too before he got going. Sri Lanka, however, failed to capitalize on this start and Virat Kohli took the attack to the opposition, as soon as he came.
- Kohli-Sharma partnership
After the kind of start that Sri Lanka got, it was important that India produce a good partnership to put a good total on the board. Virat- Rohit, rather, produced a record breaking second wicket partnership to get India on track of a massive total. The duo looked in flamboyant touch and both went on to score hundreds, Rohit’s second consecutive in this series.
- Sri Lanka’s early collapse
After getting a target of 376, Sri Lanka lost their four wickets for 68 which made it very difficult for them to get back in the game. Even Mathews innings also looked like delaying the inevitable rather than trying to get on top of the opposition and make some effort to try and get close to the total, it looked for the most part that Sri Lanka had lost it in the mind before coming on to the ground for the chase.
- S Thakur and Kuldeep Yadav impress, Manish Pandey grabs his opportunity
S Thakur had an impressive debut match and was successful in picking up his maiden ODI wicket as well as bowling at a brilliant economy rate of 3. 71. Kuldeep Yadav made his presence felt in the wickets column by wrapping up the tail, picking up the last 2 wickets in consecutive deliveries, conceding runs at an economy of 3.57 in an 8.4 overs spell. Manish Pandey also made an unbeaten half century later in India’s innings which was a sensible knock, given the conditions. These players are few of the many members who are being looked at keeping in mind a team for the 2019 ICC World Cup and all three came in as replacements in the match as the Series had already been decided at the previous encounter.
The last and final ODI of the series will be played on
Sunday, 3 September, 2:30 PM (IST)
- Premadasa Stadium, Colombo
