OPENER DILSHAN guided his team to eight wickets victory in the company of captain Mahela Jayawardene. After the fall of two quick wickets, Sri Lanka was looking in trouble, but Dilshan (62, 59b, 7x4, 6x1) and Jayawardene (36, 35b, 4x1) took their team to victory. For his brilliant batting, Dilshan was adjudged the man of the match. Due to rain, the 50 overs match was shortened to 29 overs each and later to 21 overs. Besides the unimpressive bowling of Team India, the rain also played a major role in the victory of Sri Lanka.

 

Earlier Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to field first in the rain-hit match. Indian openers Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag (14, 18b, 4x2) added 45 runs before Muttiah Muralitharan caught the latter on the boundary in the bowling of N Kulasekara. Tendulkar (32, 30b, 4x4) also fell after a short interval in 8.2 overs when the team’s total was 49 runs. Gautam Ghambir (35, 33b, 4x3), Rohit Sharma (70 not out, 64b, 4x6, 6x1), MS Dhoni (31, 26b, 4x3), Yuvraj Singh (6, 3b) and Robin Utthapa (0, 0 b) took the team’s total to 195 runs for the loss of five wickets in 29 overs.

 

Team India set a good target of 196 runs before Sri Lanka, but the rain again spoiled the game and the target was revised to 154 runs in 21 overs. Now the match turned into a Twenty20 game and chance of winning the game became 50-50 for India. Sri Lankan veteran opener, Sanath Jayasuriya was back into his old charisma and made his intentions clear by targeting S Sreesanth.

 

The islanders raced to 42 runs in just three overs and Jayasuriya was looking well set to take the game away from Indians. But, Ishant Sharma dismissed Jayasuriya (27, 13b, 4x2, 6x2) in the fourth over behind the wicket by Dhoni. Kumara Sangakkara was the next batsman to go out, he gave an easy catch to Ishant Sharma in the bowling of Harbhajan Singh.

 

Indian bowlers, who did very well in last match against Australia in Melbourne, could not repeat the same magic at Manuka Oval in Canberra. Amongst the Indian bowlers, Sreesanth was badly punished by the Sri Lankan batsmen. The pacer went for 48 runs in three overs that took the match to Sri Lanka. Ishant Sharma and Irfan Pathan also remained expensive. The Delhi seamer, who was the hero in the last match, returned with the figure of 27 for one, in four overs, while Pathan gave away 29 runs in four overs.