Sri Lanka registered a record win of 112 runs against India in the fifth and final one day international of Idea Cup by bowling out India for just 103 runs. The initial target of 228 runs was reduced to 216 runs in 44 overs but few bad umpiring and few bad shot by the Indian batsman helped Sri Lanka to register a win in the last ODI. With this loss India slipped to fifth position in ICC ODI team ranking and England jump to the third position after winning the ODI series against South Africa. Indian opener once again given their team a good start by putting 38 runs for the first wicket but middle order didn’t capitalize on the start as they have lost their way when the play resumed after the interval of 87 minutes. From 72/2 just before rain arrival India slumped to 103 all out. Suresh Raina throws his wickets away in trying to play a needless stroke of N.Kulasekara while Rohit Sharma given out by umpire on a ball which hit him outside off stump and going to miss the stump. Yuvraj Singh worst time with the bat continues as he once again cleaned up by mystery spinner A.Mendis for 17 runs. Now it was left to the man in form M.S.Dhoni and Iran Pathan to guide the Indian ship to the home but the dream of Indian fans shattered when Dhoni was bowled by Dilhara Fernando. Now it was only matter of time for A.Mendis to fold the Indian innings and he did exactly that by picking up four wickets. Earlier, for the first time in the series M.Jayawardne won the toss and decided to bat first but their top order failed again as S.Jayasurya was picked up by Zaheer Khan in his very first over to reduce the Sri Lankan score to 1/1. However two new comers M.Udawate (43 runs of 55 balls) and M.Warnapura (30 runs of 44 balls) put on 77 runs for the 2nd wicket to bring Sri Lankan inning on track but Irfan Pathan picked two wickets in one over to peg back the Sri Lankan innings. At one stage they were tattering at 133/6 in 37 overs but brilliant inning from T.Tushara (54 runs of 46 balls) and J.Mubarak (47 runs of 55 balls) posted a competitive total for the Indians. Both went on to put 94 runs in just 78 balls. N.Kulasekara was declared Man of the Match for his spell of 4/40. T.Tushara was declared Hunk of the Series for an allround performance. M.S.Dhoni was declared Player of the Series for scoring highest number of runs in the five match ODI series. India won the five match series by 3-2 to lift the IDEA Cup. Match Summary Sri Lanka – 227/6 in 50 Overs T.Tushara– 54* J.Mubarak – 47* P.Ojha – 10-4-28-2 I.Pathan– 10-0-52-2 India – 103/10 in 26.3 Overs V.Kohli – 31 Y.Singh – 17 A.Mendis– 4.3-2-10-4 N.Kulasekara– 9-2-40-4 Note: Images are taken from Cricinfo ©AFP |