With our captain MSD sitting out, It was Sehwag's turn to lead the men in Blue. A decent performance from the Sri Lankans earned them a victory at Brisbane Cricket Ground and they are ahead of India.
Commonwealth Bank series,8th match at Brisbane saw Sri Lanka winning the
toss and batting first. The openers Mahela and Dilshan did a pretty good job
adding 95 on the board the highest opening partnership for this series.With no
doubts Indian bowlers were tested right from the first over and it was Irfan
Pathan who got the first breakthrough for India, getting the wicket of Mahela
for 45 and that was a good flying catch from the Indian skipper. Soon Dilshan
was back to the pavilion after getting his half century and Sangakkara did not
make much damage with the Sri lankan score card and was out for 8 with Yadav
taking his wicket. It was again in the hands of Chandimal the middle order
batsman who has played and consolidated so much for Sri lanka from that position
made 38 and Sri Lanka was getting partnerships then and there even after losing
some quick wickets. Thirimanne was in good touch today, he made a match winning
knock of 62 before being caught by Raina at sweeper cover a very good catch
that was and India getting an important breakthrough getting his wicket, since
Thirimanne and Angelo Mathews were playing so well and 270 was always in the
cards for Sri Lanka. Angelo proving his worth as an all rounder once again made
a useful knock down the order and remained unbeaten on 49 and saw Sri Lanka
score past 280, which was quite difficult to chase at Brisbane. Sehwag made
Raina to bowl the 49 over, which saw Perera losing his wicket, no one expected
to see Virat Kohli bowling the final over, he went for plenty and finally Sri
Lanka went on to score 289 which was a very good target to defend. In the reply,
The Indian batting line up lost the wicket of Sehwag early with no score on the
board, Sachin made a brisk 22 before losing his wicket to Kulasekara and Gautam
Gambhir had the responsibility of holding the Indian innings together, but that
hopes failed, he too lost his wicket to kulasekara and India was struggling
losing the top order once again in quick time. Kohli looked solid along with Raina
and they went on to put a 50+ partnership before Raina was out for 32.It was
Jaddu's turn to get some runs, Kohli looking good lost his wicket on a crucial
time during the batting power play and went on to make a well played 66.Jaddu
soon followed Kohli and India was really struggling without partnerships. Irfan
pathan was playing so well in spite running out of partners Jaddu,Parthiv,Ashwin
and Vinay all were back to pavilion in quick successions and Irfan the last man
to get out made a brave knock of 47.India managed to score 238 in 45.1 overs
with Thisara picking up 4 wickets for 37,but it was Kulasekara who was adjudged
Man of the match for his 3 for 40 in 9 overs.
Over All.. An all round performance from Sri Lanka and the Lions have roared
again.
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