Cricket

India end Idea Cup series with humiliation

Many would call today’s match a rain affected game that resulted in India losing, others would call it the sheer brilliance of the Lankan bowlers, but the fact of the matter is that the Indian batting order failed miserably once again as they have done several times in the past. The Indians had the upper hand for most of the match but somehow, lost the game due to the rattling batting order.

Scoreboard

The India bowlers did the dard work as required and restricted the hosts to a paltry 227/6 in 50 overs. Mubarak and Thushara saved grace for the Sri Lankas who were struggling at 133/6 at one stage after 37 overs. Their 94 run partnership was probably the turning point of the match. Irfan Pathan and Pragyan Ojha took 2 wickets each while Zaheer Khan and RP Singh took a wicket each.

On the Indian batting front, only Virat Kohli provided some resistance and scored 31. Kulasekara did most of the damage by taking the wickets of Kohli, Gambhir, Raina and Rohit Sharma. He virtually destroyed the top batting order. Mendis also bowled exceptionally well and took 4 wickets while Fernando took 2. The last 7 batsmen were all unable to get to double figures. The only thing that extended the Indian batting was probably the rains that delayed the match when India were 70/3 after 14.2 overs and reduced the match to 44 overs and reducing the target to 216 runs under the Duckworth-Lewis method.

The Indians were bundled out for 103/10 in just 26.3 overs. Sri Lanka won the match by 112 runs under D/L method. For India, it has their heaviest defeat in Sri Lanka.

However, the Indians still have a reason to smile as they have won the Idea Cup ODI series 3-2 and shall be returning home with the Cup.

Man of the match: N Kulasekara
Man of the series: MS Dhoni

Tags: ajantha mendis, duckworth-lewis, fernando, gambhir, Idea Cup, Idea Cup 2008, India, irfan pathan, kohli, kulasekera, mendis, MS Dhoni, n kulusekera, pragyan ojha, Raina, rohit sharma, rp singh, sri lanka, virat kohli, Zaheer Khan