 Virat Kohli (71* runs of 68 balls) and Gautam Gambhir (71 runs of 86 balls) played a helping hand in India’s eight wicket win over Sri Lanka. With this win India secured their berth in the Final of Idea Cup 2010. The Indian bowlers performed exceptionally well after long-long time, bowling out Sri Lanka for just 213 in 46.1 overs before their batting colleagues took over, guiding the team to 214 for two for a facile win that came with 17.2 overs to spare. Indian fielders also done really well today and probably they have displayed one of the best fielding performance after long time which set up their thumping win. Chasing a modest target of 214 runs for victory, India got of to flying start with Dinesh Karthik (48 runs of 40 balls) and Gautam Gambhir putting on 89 runs for the 1st wicket. Then Virat Kohli and Gambhir went on to put another half-century partnership of 72 runs for the second wicket. In the end Virat Kohli and Yuvraj Singh put on 53 runs of just 27 balls to ensure an easy win over Sri Lanka. Earlier Kumar Sangakra won the toss and decided to bat first knowing that dew factor will arrive at later part of the innings. It was his experiment which didn’t worked right for his team. Sudeep Tyagi strikes in his very first over to give big blow to Sri Lanka removing Upul Tharanga for eighth duck of his ODIs career. Then Zaheer removed dangerous looking T.Dilshan (33 runs of 17 balls) to reduce the Sri Lankan score to 42/2 in the 6th over. Captain Kumar Sangakara top-scored with a 78-ball 68 while rookie Suraj Randiv, who made his debut in the ODI series against India last month, contributed with a valuable 76-ball 56, his maiden half century. Zaheer Khan was the pick of the bowlers, creating one half chance, and two fairly easy ones. Amit Mishra also bowled well with grabbing three wickets. India and Sri Lanka played each other for the 120th time in ODIs. This equals the existing world record of most matches between any two countries. Australia and West Indies have also played 120 matches against each other. When both teams meet on Wednesday in the final of the tri-series, they will go past this record. Now both teams will play with each other in the Final of Idea Cup on Wednesday but before that India will take on Bangladesh on Monday in the last league game. Zaheer Khan was declared Player of the Match for his superb bowling display of 3/38. Match Summary (India won by 8 Wickets) Sri Lanka– 213/10 in 46.1 Overs Kumar Sangakara- 68 S.Randiv- 56 Zaheer Khan- 10-2-38-3 A.Mishra– 9.1-1-40-3 India – 214/2 in 32.4 Overs Virat Kohli- 71* G.Gambhir– 71 T.Thushara– 6-0-33-1 T.Peera- 5-1-32-1 |
