Sharma, Kohli send bowlers on leather hunt with centuries:
Another appalling performance in the fourth one-day international against India saw Sri Lanka suffer their fourth straight defeat of the five-match series and left them in danger of being whitewashed 5-0 for the first time in a home rubber.
Yesterday at the R Premadasa Stadium, Sri Lanka’s fast diminishing cricket image took another beating when India handed out to them a thumping 168-run defeat.
The moment Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli compiled a double century partnership for India, the writing was on the wall for Sri Lanka and it was no see surprise to see them go down by such a big margin.
India’s total of 375-5 the highest ever made by a visiting team against Sri Lanka at home left the hosts with few alternatives or none at all. It proved to be too big a task for a team that has barely managed to scrape together 200 plus runs in each of the first three matches. In the event Sri Lanka got to 207 in 42.4 overs before they were bowled out with 44 balls to spare.
The only redeeming feature of the innings was Angelo Mathew’s knock of 70 off 80 balls (10 fours). The former captain found himself in the middle by the ninth over and throughout the series he never had an opportunity to express himself because he always came to bat when the chips were down.
Sri Lanka’s job was made even more difficult when they went into the match one batsman short. They opted for young all-rounder Wanindu Hasaranga despite having Dhananjaya de Silva in their squad. De Silva was a late replacement for Danushka Gunathilaka who could not recover in time from a shoulder injury.
Even history was against Sri Lanka for no team had successfully chased a score beyond 288 on this ground. Even to get thus far Sri Lanka needed a launch pad and Niroshan Dickwella with his third opening partner in the series – Dilshan Munaweera failed to provide that. By the ninth over the Lankan innings was in tatters at 27-3 and there was only one result in the match unless bad weather intervened before the 20th over to make it a no-result. However luck was not on Sri Lanka’s side as has been the case throughout the year and, with the match played to a finish saw Sri Lanka humbled again much to the disappointment of a few thousands of fans who made their way to the venue. It was a rare sight to see the R Premadasa Stadium not even filled to half its capacity of 35,000 for a one-day international. To such a low level has the interest in the game dwindled following the spate of defeats the national team is currently undergoing.
For the first time in the series India after winning the toss chose to bat first on a placid track that was full of runs. Shikhar Dhawan missed out on that golden opportunity when he was dismissed for four in the second over, but that brought together Sharma and Kohli who tore the Lankan bowling to shreds with a stand of 219 off 168 balls.
On a track that didn’t offer much for the bowlers the Lankan line up was badly exposed. Even Lasith Malinga with all his experience in international cricket was hardly effective going for 82 runs in his 10 overs. The only joy that he had was dismissing Kohli for 131 – a wicket that brought him his 300th in ODI cricket, making him the fourth Sri Lankan bowler to achieve the milestone and the 13th overall.
Man of the Match Kohli was in imperious form dominating the partnership scoring his runs off just 96 balls with the aid of 17 fours and two sixes. It was his 29th ODI century and seventh against Sri Lanka.
Sharma was not far behind his captain moving to his second successive hundred of the series – 104 off 88 balls inclusive of 11 fours and three sixes and the 13th of his career and fourth against Sri Lanka.
After the partnership was broken by Malinga, Sri Lanka managed a few cheap wickets with Mathews taking the wickets of Hardik Pandya (19) and Sharma off successive deliveries and, when Akila Dananjaya had Lokesh Rahul chipping a catch to midwicket India had half the side out for 274 in the 38th over.
But once again the MS Dhoni factor proved to be Sri Lanka’s stumbling block. The former Indian skipper making his 300th ODI appearance figured in an unbroken century partnership – his third in consecutive innings to take India to their record total in Sri Lanka.
On this occasion he formed a liaison with Manish Pandey playing his first match of the series and one of three changes made by India. While Pandey went onto score an unbeaten half century off 42 balls Dhoni missed at 25 by Munaweera at backward point made 49 not out off the same number of balls.
Sri Lanka’s bowling was poor and the attack showed its lack of depth and experience against a vastly skillful Indian batting line up. In his first match as ODI captain Malinga used as many as seven bowlers to try and contain the Indian batting but to no avail.
Shardul Thakur (India), Malinda Pushpakumara and Munaweera (Sri Lanka) made their ODI debuts.
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