India were beaten quite comprehensively by Sri Lanka in the third ODI of the Tri-nation series. With this heavy defeat of 161 runs, which hardly had any positives for Indian team, it would be interesting to see that how Virat Kohli performs as a skipper in the remaining games.
Here we bring to you the hits and flops from the match between India and Sri Lanka:
HITS
Mahela Jayawardene: Terrific batting from Mahela pushed Indian bowlers on the back-foot. He made the most of the dropped catch by Murali Vijay when Sri Lanka were 0/57 and went onto add 213 runs for the first wicket with Tharanga. He came dancing down the track to hit the bowlers for fours and sixes, especially against Ishant Sharma, who was looking helpless.
Upul Tharanga: Tharanga started off slowly but shifted his gear during the batting power play. He wasn’t even looking like a batsman who was making a comeback in the team. He was lucky when Rohit Sharma missed the chance of a run-out in the second over of the game. But he did justice to the decision of his captain of making him play, as he scored an unbeaten 174 runs, which is the best innings of this tri-series so far.
Nuwan Kulasekara: He picked up just one wicket but that was good enough to make Indian batting panic. His tight bowling has always been helpful, it was no different in this match as well. He ended up with the figures of 1/37 in his nine overs.
Angelo Mathews: Mathews had a great day with the bat as well as the ball. He smashed 44 runs off 29 balls in the death overs and then took a very smart decision of bowling himself ahead of Malinga because of the reverse-swing factor. He was stunning with the new ball as he picked up the wicket of Virat who could have changed the script of the match. He ended up with the figures of 1/23 in his eight overs.
Ranagan Herath: Herath spelled his magic quite brilliantly and made the most of the pressure situation. He first bagged the wicket of dangerous looking Shikhar Dhawan and later dismissed Dinesh Karthik, who was trying to architect the Indian innings with Suresh Raina.
FLOPS
Umesh Yadav: His bowling stats are going from bad to worse after every match he plays. He has been roped in to provide early breakthrough but he has failed to do so and instead ends up getting hammered all over the park. He has been too predictable with his short balls and his inability to execute yorkers makes him even look like a mediocre bowler. It’s a high-time for someone like Umesh to prove himself because the average of 43.57 in the ODIs that he has played this year is just not good enough to retain his place in playing eleven.
Rohit Sharma: He was the first to go on the day his team needed him the most. Chasing down a target of close to 350 was not an easy task to do and that’s what created the pressure on him as he was unable to score boundaries. He was trying to hit a length ball and was caught at short mid-wicket by Mathews.
Murali Vijay: Vijay made the mistake of dropping the catch of Mahela Jayawardene and rest is the history. He couldn’t even compensate with the bat as he was dismissed after he scored hard-fought 30 runs. The thing that would have drawn the maximum amount of attention was his running between the wickets. He was trying to take a longer route to complete his run and he did that mistake quiet repeatedly.
Virat Kohli: All of a sudden getting a huge responsibility has surely brought a significant pressure on him. One thing that was hard to understand was why he didn’t allow his frontline spinner Ravi Ashwin to bowl before the 20th over when the damage could have been restricted. Relying on Jadeja was suicidal as the ball was not offering any turn to him. Later in the batting, he sent Vijay ahead of him who hasn’t played any match in last couple of years or so. His batting at number four didn’t last too long as he ended up scoring just two runs.
Ishant Sharma: His bowling has been the classic example of crest and trouhg. He gets smacked for 10-15 runs and then comes back to give a wicket. But against Sri Lanka, one didn’t get to see him making any come back. He didn’t bowl the yorkers at regular intervals and allowed Jayawardene to accelerate the innings.
Amit Chopra
Indian Sports News Network
