Pathetic Sri Lanka slump to another defeat - lose series

PALLEKELE, Sunday: Sri Lanka stumbled towards another series defeat as they lost the third one-day international to India by six wickets but not before unprecedented scenes of angry spectators venting their displeasure at the loss by pelting plastic bottles onto the playing area and holding up play for 32 minutes.

The incident the first of its kind in Sri Lanka’s cricket history started at the commencement of the 45th over with India on 210-4 - eight runs away from victory.

The players and umpires returned to the pavilion and came back after the ground was cleared of the debris. Play resumed after a section of the unruly crowd was vacated from the ground by the riot police.

India took another seven balls to knock off the required runs in 45.1 overs making 218-4 to give them an unassailable 3-0 lead in the five-match series. India rode on opener Rohit Sharma’s 11th ODI hundred to chase down a moderate target of 218 with 29 balls to spare.

On a fresh pitch that offered enough sideways movement Sri Lanka chose to bat first and struggled to reach 217-9 off their 50 overs which was totally insufficient to contain a strong Indian batting line up unless someone like Akila Dananjaya could produce a magical spell like he did on Thursday.

Dananjaya briefly gave glimpses of doing so when he took two wickets in his first two overs sending back Lokesh Rahul and Kedhar Jadav to reduce India to 61-4, but like in the second ODI Sri Lanka’s success came to a grinding halt against an Indian road block.

In the second ODI it was MS Dhoni who thwarted Sri Lanka’s attempt to win with Bhuvneshwar Kumar. On this occasion it was Dhoni again who proved to be the stumbling block - in partnership with Sharma who carried India to yet another win.

The Sharma-Dhoni partnership prospered to add an unbroken 157 for the fifth wicket off 180 balls.

Sharma was the mainstay of the Indian run chase coolly and calmly collecting his runs to bring up his third hundred against Sri Lanka off 118 balls with 14 fours and a six. He was put down at 113 by skipper Chamara Kapugedera at mid on but that chance came too late for Sri Lanka to come back into the game as India was only 34 runs shy of victory. Dhoni finished on 67 not out off 86 balls (4 fours, 1 six) – his 67th ODI fifty and 17th against Sri Lanka.

Lasith Malinga wicketless in the first two ODIs picked up his first wicket of the series and the 299th of his career when bowled Shikhar Dhawan for five. But that was to be his solitary success of the match.

Indian bowlers were well disciplined and bowled to their field making run making a difficult task for Sri Lanka. In the circumstances Lahiru Thirimanne and Dinesh Chandimal, Sri Lanka’s two comeback men stitched together the best partnership of the innings 72 off 104 balls for the third after Bumrah had made the early breakthrough by sending back Dickwella (13) and Mendis (1) within the space of four overs of each other.

Thirimanne returning to the team after a 19-month absence played resolutely for 80 off 105 balls (5 fours, 1 six) – his 17th ODI fifty and fifth against India before his innings came to an untimely end when he fell to Bumrah’s slow ball and chipped a catch to midwicket.

Chandimal who opened the innings with Dickwella was going well until a sharp rising delivery from Pandya hit him on the right thumb. Although he continued to bat after treatment on the field he somewhat batted with difficulty and eventually fell to Pandya holing out to deep square leg.

It was later revealed that Chandimal had suffered a hairline fracture in his right thumb and he did not take the field when India began their run chase. Apart from the Chandimal-Thirimanne partnership the rest of the batting put up a woeful performance once again.

Here we have a Sri Lanka team struggling to put up 200 on the board in 50 overs when other teams are looking to running up at the same total in T20 cricket. It is to such depths that the country’s cricket has nose-dived.

Where the Lankan batsmen are erring is their inability to rotate the strike. Limited overs cricket is not all about hitting boundaries but lessening the number of dot balls so that you run up a decent total to allow the bowlers a chance to bowl at the opposition.

Yesterday the Lankan batsmen played down an incredible 184 dot balls and ran only 93 singles in the 308 balls they faced during their innings. What this implies is that Sri Lanka lacks batsmen of quality to pick the gaps and rotate the strike when the bowlers are on song.

The only thing that Sri Lanka did right was under a new captain Chamara Kapugedera they ended their losing sequence with the toss and won it for the first time in the series.

But the decision they took to bat first seemed to back fire as the wicket provided lateral movement for the fast bowlers and Bumrah making full use of it took his first five-for in ODIs ending with the impressive figures of 10-2-27-5. He won the Man of the Match award. Bumrah whose mentor is Lasith Malinga troubled all the batsmen with his deceptive pace, change of lengths and angles and deserved his five wickets. His new ball partner Buvneshwar Kumar was unlucky again to finish wicketless. He is still looking for his first in the series.

The fourth ODI will take place at the R Premadasa Stadium on August 31.

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