In a one sided affair India conveniently outplayed Sri Lanka in penultimate ODI and went one step ahead towards double clean sweep. Earlier, in test series, India defeated Sri Lanka in all three matches.
In a day night game played at Colombo on Thursday India won the toss and elected to bat. After losing in form Shikhar Dhawan in the second over, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli took Sri Lankan bowlers for a ride till Kohli got out in 30th over becoming Lasith Malinga’s 300th scalp. Earlier, Kohli took the charge and played some elegant cover drives and twisted the wrist deftly to flick the ball in mid wicket and mid-off region. Soon, Rohit Sharma joined the party and both started to make a mockery of Sri Lanka Bowling by playing shots across the ground and rotating strike at will. At one point the projected score went above 400.
But, after making centuries both batsmen got out and during the period India lost four wickets in quick successions. K L Rahul and Hardik Pandya were other two players who lost their wickets, in the way. Then on Manish Pandey along with MS Dhoni, who was playing his 300th ODI showed some restrain to keep wickets intact and added 101 runs in 76 balls. Pandey made a half century while Dhoni stayed one run short of it. With combined batting effort India achieved an innings total of 375. Dhoni incidentally earn the 300th run of Indian inning by taking Single. The fast outfield and flat surface has certainly made the task of Indian batsmen much easier to reach the total.
Chasing a big target was not an easy task for the Lankans as Indian bowlers have restricted them within 250 in previous matches. The team performance has not been up to the mark for last few days. Unhappy fans turned against their teams and threw bottles during third match of the ongoing series which stopped play for 35 minutes. On Tuesday their selectors have resigned taking moral responsibility for below par show by the team. Injuries of their key players have further added to the woes. Latest, Chamara Kapugedara who led Sri Lanka in previous match ruled out due to back injury. Nothing at the moment seems to going in the favor of them.
Still it was expected that Sri Lanka will put up some fight as the wicket was flat therefore there was nothing for bowlers. Yet they miserably fail to put any resistance and were bundled out for 207 in 43rd over. They lost wicket at regular interval and could not build partnerships. Angelo Mathew alone put some fight; however, his 70 runs were not enough to save Sri Lanka with another embarrassing defeat- Biggest loss at home turf.
Brief Score Card
India (50 Overs)
RG Sharma 104 (88)
V Kohli 131 (96)
AD Mathews 2/24 (6.0)
A Dhananjaya 1/68 (10.0)
Sri Lanka (42.4 Overs)
AD Mathews 70 (80)
TAM Sriwardana 39 (43)
Kuldeep Yadav 2/31 (8.4)
JJ Bumrah 2/32 (7.0)
