It were the Delhites who won India the semi-final match of ICC Champions trophy 2013 against Sri Lanka on Thursday at Cardiff. First it was some brilliant bowling from Ishant Sharma, who dismantled the top order and then it was the smashing duo of Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli, who scored half-centuries to take India across the finish line. Apart from them, Ravindra Jadeja and Ravi Ashwin also managed to stamp their authority by picking up four wickets amongst them.
Here we bring to you the hits and flops of the match between India and Sri Lanka.
HITS
Ishant Sharma: Sharma was absolutely brilliant in his first spell in which he bowled six overs . He ended up with the brilliant figures of 3/33 which was good enough to get him the Man-of-the-Match award in this very important match. He picked up the wicket of Sangakkara and Thirimanne in his successive overs, which was the turning point of the match.
Ravi Ashwin: Ashwin finished off with an impressive figures of 3/48 after his full quota of overs. His ability to create the pressure on batsman has done wonders for Indian team and it was no different at Cardiff. His bowling in the death overs not only contained the Lankan batsmen but he also picked up wickets at regular intervals. Interestingly, he bowled his first over in the 32nd over of the innings which was a gutsy decision from Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Shikhar Dhawan: Dhawan’s dhamaka was just too good for Lankan pace battery. Surely his inclusion in the team has added loads of strength to the top-order which was looking quite vulnerable since last couple of series. He scored another brilliant knock of 68 runs, which took his tally of scoring runs to 328 in this Champions Trophy 2013.
Angelo Mathews: Mathews was brilliant with the bat and ball but it wasn’t his day. He scored a terrific half-century and also picked up the wicket of Rohit Sharma. But it was just too late. His captaincy has earned him lot of criticism and it looks he has hardly learned from that. Not allowing Malinga to bowl at one go was the biggest mistake when his team was defending such a low total.
Ravindra Jadeja: Jadeja was once again sensational with the ball. He bowled 19 dot balls and gave away just seven runs in his last four overs. He bagged the wicket of Mahela Jayawardene at the very crucial time, which applied a break on the Lankan innings and turned the tables for Indian team.
Virat Kohli: Kohli was once again magical with the bat, especially when he was batting against Malinga. Malinga kept bowling short to right-hander and he kept milking him for ones and twos or sometimes even for odd boundary. He scored 58 runs off just 64 balls, which was his 23rd half-century in ODI’s.
FLOPS
Kumar Sangakkara: Sangakkara was taken aback by some really good bowling of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ishant Sharma. They kept deceiving him with their out-swingers which he wasn’t able to read properly. He failed to cope up with the bounce of the wicket and gave away a catch to Raina who was standing at second-slip.
Lasith Malinga: It looks like Malinga is having some kind of phobia against the Indian batsmen. He was smacked for 54 runs in his eight overs. He got the special treatment from Dhawan and Kohli who smacked four fours and one six off him.
Lahiru Thirimanne: He was undone by Ishant who kept bowling back off a length delivery again and again. He scored just seven runs in his stay of 50 minutes at the crease.
Nuwan Kulasekara: He bowled out his full quota of overs but failed to pick up a wicket. He was bit unlucky as Dhawan was dropped twice in his bowling first by Mathews and then by Sangakkara. He conceded five boundaries and ended up with the figures of 0/45.
By Amit Chopra
Indian Sports News Network