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August 24, 2008
 The
Sri Lankan batting came to pieces for the second time in a row
against some quality swing and seam bowling from the Indians.
Set a target of 238, the Sri Lankans found it hard to counter
the near perfect bowling under the lights from Zaheer Khan,
Praveen Kumar and Munaf Patel. Although Sri Lanka slipped to a
hopeless 94 for 7 but ended up losing the 3rd ODI at RPS,
Colombo by just 33 runs. Skipper Mahela Jayawardene fought
almost till the end with a tremendous knock which made India
pay price for the absence of a genuine fifth bowler.
The batting conditions at the R Premadasa
Stadium were going to be a lot better than what they were at
Dambulla. That prompted the Indian Captain to
bat first after clinching a hat-trick with the tosses. Both
sides made a change each with Gambhir coming in for Pathan and
Vaas coming back for Dilhara Fernando. It was a promising
start from the Delhi pair of Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir.
Both negotiated the early threat from Vaas and Kulasekara and
looked set to tear the bowling apart until a freak single
spoilt the good show. Virat Kohli (25 from 38 balls with 4
fours) thought that he could steal a single after flicking one
straight to mid on but found out that Chamara Silva was very
accurate with a direct hit. This is the second time that Kohli
has shown his immaturity by losing his wicket after doing all
the hard work. India were soon going to be 40 for 2 in the
10th over when Umpire Tyron Wijewardene gave Gambhir (8 from
20 balls) lbw to a delivery that pitched outside the legstump.
Next man Yuvraj Singh, India's best batsman showed his guts by
pulling Kulasekara into the crowd at mid wicket with ease but
soon fell to the same bowler. Yuvraj (12 from 17) was forced
to nick an away going seamer to the slips.
A promising start was now totally wasted
with India at 62 for 3, they so badly needed a couple of good
partnerships atleast to get to a decent total. More so because
of the 'devastating threat' that SL had in Ajantha Mendis. The
visitors appeared to be getting on the track through the pair
of Suresh Raina and S Badrinath. Both the youngsters looked
real good against Mendis. Raina even took the courage to slog
sweep Mendis for a six over mid wicket. Badrinath showed some
extravagance too which unfortunately made him pay the price of
his wicket. Badrinath (6 from 19) jumped down the track in
style but only to drive Mendis straight into the throat of mid
off to further reduce his team to 91 for 4 in the 23rd over.
This once again asked MS Dhoni to bat in an extremely
responsible manner. And that was exactly what Dhoni did and he
also got Raina to keep his head down and bat out the overs
sensibly. The running between the wickets was the key in
making the partnership busy. Muttiah Muralitharan for once was
dumbstruck as he couldn't stop the two batsmen from working
him away for the runs.
Ajantha Mendis too had an off day with the
odd short one being dished out and getting caned by Dhoni and
Raina. Mahela Jayawardene had to take him off and bring in
Jayasuriya which only took off a lot of threat for the
Indians. It was another tragic run out that was going to spoil
the party for the visitors, this time Raina found it difficult
to get to the striker's end after an unsure call for a single
from Dhoni. Raina scored 53 from 80 balls with 4 fours and a
six and the way he and the youngsters had batted, a lot of
good promise is there on the cards for the future of Indian
Cricket. India got to 145 for 5 in the 35th over and they
could so easily would have been bowled out less than 200.
Another partnership was the key and fortunately because India
played the extra batsman at no.7, they could get what they
wanted. Rohit Sharma made amends for his earlier failures to
stitch together an important 6th wicket stand with Dhoni to
take India past the 200. Sri Lanka were lucky to restrict
India to 237 for 9 as they got the wickets of Rohit Sharma (32
from 32 with 3 fours and dismissed in the 46th over) and MS
Dhoni at crucial junctures. Dhoni scored a Captain's knock
under pressure of 76 from 80 balls with 8 fours. He fell in
the 3rd ball of the 49th over otherwise there could have been
a few more runs on the board.
Ajantha Mendis was expensive compared to the
high standards that he has set. But he still went onto take 3
wickets and out of that was the penultimate over of the
innings when he took two wickets in two balls. He just
conceded a single run in the 49th over! It was imperative that
the new ball bowlers made the inroads for Dhoni or the likes
of Jayasuriya, Sangakkara could take the game away within an
hour. Praveen Kumar was the man with the golden arm for Dhoni
as the swing bowler bought the wicket of Jayasuriya through a
couple of boundaries. What was the strength of Jayasuriya (!3
from 15 with 3 fours) became his downfall as he went after a
delivery that was wide outside off but swinging away to catch
the edge. And Sangakkara (9 from 12 with 2 fours) once again
was dead struck infront of the stumps by a sharp incoming
delivery from Zaheer in the 6th over. India were back in the
game because of these two big wickets. Two more wickets were
to follow from Praveen Kumar and Zaheer Khan who caught
Kapugedera and Chamara Silva respectively in the crease to
leave SL in tatters at 40 for 4 in the 10th over.
Mahela Jayawardene kept watching these
wickets go down at the other end and he himself had to find a
lot of luck in not getting any edges to some unplayable
deliveries from Zaheer Khan. Mahela's new partner Dilshan (16
from 21 with 3 fours) as usual showed no guts in weathering
the storm sensibly through some solid defence. He just went on
with his rash strokeplay until he had to edge a beauty of an
away going delivery from Munaf. Sri Lanka were now out of the
match at 58 for 5 in the 17th over and in the next over, they
became 58 for 6 with Harbhajan cleaning up the weak defenses
of Vaas with an armer. With the pacers running out of their
overs, Dhoni had to resort to spin at both the ends in the
form of Harbhajan and Yuvraj. That allowed Jayawardene and
Kulasekara to get off the hook and to bat out a few overs.
Finally, Yuvraj got a wicket out of nowhere when his armer
beat Kulasekara (11 from 30) on his pads to be given out lbw.
It wasn't the right decision though as the point of impact was
outside off, anyway SL were now on the brink of defeat at 94
for 7 in the 27th over.
Just when everyone thought that they would
have an early finish to the match came a stubborn partnership
between Mahela and the capable lower order bat Thushara. The
partnership looked to have taking the game nowhere but as it
gained proportions, a victory was not ruled out as far as the
hosts were concerned. But there were still plenty of runs in
the bag for Dhoni and a mistake or two was bound to happen
from the Sri Lankans. Thushara's innings finally came to an
end through a simple yorker length delivery from Zaheer in the
44th over as the former had no choice but to try and
manufacture shots irrespective of the merit of the ball.
Thushara made 30 from 55 with 2 fours besides lifting SL to
175 for 8. It was now all left to Mahela to pull off a miracle
through some super human efforts. He raised hopes again and
again through some brilliant and innovative shots but he was
also losing his energy rapidly because of the humid
conditions. And one weak paddle from him went straight to
short fine leg to tragically end his innings six short of a
heroic hundred. Mahela faced 111 runs for his 94 which had six
fours and a six. Sri Lanka folded to 204 in 49 overs with
Munaf Patel yorking Muralitharan. Zaheer and Munaf shared
three wickets each and Praveen Kumar got two. The Man of the
Match went to the Indian Captain while his counterpart wasn't
less deserving to get that award. Sri Lanka are now in a
mist-win situation in the 4th ODI to save the series from
being lost to India, who are 2-1.
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