Ishant Sharma once again shown why he is reckoned as one of the superb fast bowler India found after long time. He once gain bowls superbly to run through the Sri Lankan top order and later Harabhajan Singh join the party by picking up four crucial wickets to bowled out the Sri Lankan’s for 136.
Now both the team is leveling the series at 1-1 with one more test match to go which will be played from 8th August to 12th August at P.Saravanamuttu Stadium, Colombo.
It was two big performances from the Indian player which gave India an edge in this match over the Sri Lanka. First it was Virendra Sehwag (201* and 50 runs) and then in bowling Harbhajan Singh (6/102 and 4/51).
Earlier Indian team just added another 69 runs in the morning session before their 2nd innings comes to an end. As expected both Murali and Medis folded the Indian batting lineup quickly to gave their team an outside chance of winning the series at Galle Cricket Stadium.
Sri Lanka needed 307 runs for victory started their chase very poorly as Indian pace bowler strikes thrice in quick succession. Both reduced the Sri Lankan score to 10/3 with all the big guns M.Warnapura (0), K.Sangkara (1) and M.Jayawardne (5) back in the hurt.
However Sri Lankan’s batsman survive some anxious moments without any further damage done to them before going to lunch. At 10/3 they were already looking down the barrel before Harbhajan Singh striking in his very first over to reduce the Sri Lanka to 37/4 by removing M.Vandort (10 runs). M.Vandort who already got quite few chances before getting out lbw on the bowling of H.Singh.
T.Samaraweera and T.Dilshan batted with care and attention as Harbhajan and Anil Kumble tried to break through. They added 76 runs before a beauty of delivery of Ishant Sharma get rid of T.Dilshan (38 runs) to destroy any further hopes of Sri Lankan’s fans.
It left Sri Lanka 115 for five in the first over after the interval and meant that Thilan Samaraweera would need to put together a monumental effort to attempt to win this game as India closed in for a series-levelling victory. From then it was Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble who removes the rest of the Sri Lankan tail as T.samarweera remain nou out till the end.
