Cardiff: India have made their way to the finals of ICC Champions Trophy after crushing Sri Lanka by the healthy margin of eight wickets in one-sided affair here on Thursday. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ishant Sharma gave India the much needed breakthroughs which pushed Sri Lanka to the back-foot, but it was brilliant bowling from Ravindra Jadeja and Ravi Ashwin which restricted the Lankans to 181 runs in their 50 overs.
Later, Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma gave India an ideal start in the typical English conditions and Virat Kohli’s brilliant half-century sealed the victory for the Indians.
Chasing the modest total of 182 on the wicket that was offering seam and bounce was not an easy task, but the ability of Sharma and Dhawan to play some exquisite shots rather than going hard against the bowlers paid off quite well. They played quite sensibly in the first 15 overs, but Sharma lost his wicket to Angelo Mathews who broke India's opening partnership of 77 runs. Sharma departed after scoring 33 runs while going for a slog shot.
Dhawan maintained his composure and kept knocking the ball for ones and twos. He reached his second half-century whereas Kohli was taking his time to get settled down. After adding 65 runs with Kohli, Dhawan got stumped by Sangakkara, who was lightning fast, but the damage was already done as India was standing tall at 2/142.
Kohli got into the groove and accelerated his innings, scoring boundaries off Lasith Malinga. Malinga turned out to be the worst bowler for Lankans as he gave away 54 runs in his eight overs. Suresh Raina, who came into bat at Number four, finished it off with a boundary.
Ishant Sharma was awarded the man-of-the-match for his impressive figures of 3/33.
Earlier in the contest, Bhuvneshwar gave a very good start by getting the wicket of Kushal Perera in his second over. But the bigger blow came in for Sri Lankans when they fell short of the services of Tilakaratne Dilshan, who was looking in good touch. Kumar Sangakkara and Lahiru Thirimanne added 19 runs for the 3rd wicket before Thirimanne departed for seven runs off 31 balls. Sangakkara couldn’t handle the pressure of playing the dot balls and was caught at slips by Raina. He scored just 17 runs off 44 balls that he faced and was the second victim Ishant.
Mahela Jayawardene and Angelo Mathews played sensibly and added 78 runs for the fourth wicket. But Jayawardene was undone by Jadeja, who was bowling quite brilliantly. Jayawardene did all the hard work and tried to get his team out of the trouble before he departed for 38 runs.
Mathews kept his cool and was looking to play long innings. He was the only Sri Lanka to score a half century. But apart from Jeevan Mendis, he didn’t get much from other batsmen. Mathews was dismissed after he scored 51 off 89 balls whereas Mendis added 25 runs off 35 balls.
Ravi Ashwin and Ishant Sharma picked up three wickets each.