Just when we were thinking that Team India might romp up the series with a 4-1 victory margin, especially after its historic triumph in the Emerald Island, the team displayed a shoddy performance to lose its final match by registering one of its low score defeats. With no “finals” or “series decider” match threats, in which the Indian team had always struggled, it should have been an easy outing, but, hard working effort by two hard working players had India in trouble.
Winning the toss, the Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene decided to bat first, thoughts of the R.Premadasa pitch helping slow ball bowlers in the second half of the match was obvious in the Sri Lankan skippers mind.
Batting first, the Sri Lankan’s lost their first wicket in the form of Sanath Jayasuriya, but Malinda Warnapura and Mahela Udawatte thwarted the opening onslaught by the Indian new ball bowlers with some sensible batting. At 77/1 things looked stable, but both Warnapura and Udwatte perished in one brilliant over by Irfan Pathan and Kumar Sangakkara followed suite in the next over. Skipper Jayawardene and Chamara Kapugedera batted slowly but wickets kept falling at regular intervals and by the 37th over, Sri Lanka had lost six wickets with the score card reading 133 runs.
First timer in the series, Jehan Mubarak and an unsung hero Thilan Thushara, who played his best batting in this match by scoring his first half century, ensured that the Lankans post a respectable target on the score board. A word about Thushara is that in all the matches that he played, he was impressive in scoring runs and taking wickets, displaying his ability as a quality allrounder. The two left-handed batsmen toiled to take the Sri Lankan total to 227 runs.
For India, Pathan and spinner Pragyan Ojha took two and Zaheer Khan and R.P.Singh took a wicket each.
With 228 to win, the Indian openers Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir batted with controlled aggression. Gambhir scored his first runs with back-to-back boundaries and Kohli again batted brilliantly for his 31, incidently becoming the highest scorer of this match. But they could not carry for long and were back in the dressing room by the 11th over. Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina batted in the drizzle and after Raina got out, it started to rain and the match was stopped for a brief period of time.
The Duckworth-Lewis method was quickly referred and a new target of 216 runs in 44 overs was set for the Indian team. Soon, Rohit Sharma got out to Nuwan Kulasekara, who by then had scalped all the first four wickets that fell in the second session. Ajantha Mendis was introduced at this point and the spinner responded by taking Yuvraj’s wicket in his first over and his first ball of the match. The Indian score card read 79 for five. Soon skipper M.S. Dhoni was also out, perhaps, this was not his day to be a savior. Mendis and Dilhara Fernando ripped through the lower middle order and lower order batsmen and in no time India were all out for 103 runs, the last six wickets falling for 24 runs. The result, Sri Lanka won the final match by 112 runs as per the Duckworth Lewis revised score.
For Sri Lanka, Mendis took four wickets in his short spell, Fernando took two and Kulasekara with his four initial wickets that started the Indian collapse, was rightfully adjudged the Player of the match. Indian skipper Dhoni was adjudged the Player of the series. India wins the five-match series 3-2.
