First it was the inning of Sehwag (293 runs) who murdered the Sri Lankans bowling with his familiar batting styles then it was turn of Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni to hit the Sri Lankan bowlers especially spinners out of the park to reach his second century of the tournament and third of his career. It was not only taken India lead over 300 runs but also now his team is in such a position that they can not only wins the 3rd test match but will also advance to the top of ICC Test ranking table. M.S.Dhoni who was running out of the partner from one end and scored his first 50 runs of 96 balls and for other fifty he has taken just 58 balls to reach the three figure mark. He added 56 runs with P.Ojha (5* runs) for the last wicket that ensured India lead to 333 runs. As soon as M.S.Dhoni reached his century with a shot that has gone out of the ground, India declared the innings on 726/9 to put Sri Lanka to bat on day3 for three overs. Earlier many fans dreams shattered when Sehwag missed his triple century by just 7 runs, he was caught and bowled by the man who got lots of hammering from the same man on day two of this match. M.Muralithran will be thankful to god that he finally got his man. However it was too late for Sri Lanka and at the end of the days play they are facing a huge task of saving this game and somewhat saving their pride. Virendra Sehwag brilliance has no word to describe, his strike rates in test cricket are far better than any other players who have played the test cricket. Sachin Tendulkar (12,917 runs at 54.73) has a strike-rate of 54.12, Ricky Ponting (11,400 runs at 55.88) scores at a rate of 59.41, Matthew Hayden (8625 runs at 50.73) got his at 60.10, and Brian Lara (11,953 runs at 52.88) at 60.51. Sanath Jayasuriya comes closest, with a strike-rate of 65.10, but his average is just over 40. In all the process India also manage to post their highest test totals on the board 726/9 beating their previous best of 705 for 7 against Australia in Sydney. Match Summary (Day3 Stump) Sri Lanka 1st Inning– 393/10 in 94.4 Overs T.Dilshan- 109 A.Mathews– 99 Harbhajan Singh– 32-3-112-4 P.Ojha- 23.4-1-101-3 India 1st Inning– 726/9 dec in 163.3 Overs V.Sehwag- 293 M.S.Dhoni– 100* M.Muralitharan- 51-4-195-4 R.Herath– 53.3-2-240-3 Sri Lanka 2nd Inning – 11/0 in 3 Overs N.Paranavitana- 8* T.Dilshan– 3* H.Singh- 2-0-7-0 P.Ojha– 1-0-4-0 |
