India beat Sri Lanka in the second ODI of the Common Wealth Bank Tri Series at WACA, Perth by 4 wickets with 20 balls to spare. This is only their second victory on this tour down under, whether it is light at the end of the tunnel or one off victory, time will only tell.
India almost gifted the match to Sri Lanka by some reckless batting from top and middle order batsmen and it was left to sensible batting by Ravindra Jadeja and Man of the Match R Ashwin as they put on an unbroken 7th wicket partnership of 53.
Chasing a reasonably modest target of 234, India started with Sehwag and Tendulkar (both double centurions in ODI’s). After two rasping shots for boundaries, Sehwag fell to all too familiar fashion to a good catch at third man. Kohli and Tendulkar steadied the ship with a partnership of 75 runs before the little master played on to Matthews for 48. Rohit Sharma came and gone due to a poor shot. The left hander Suresh Raina started off in a confident manner with two neatly struck boundaries before falling to a shot pitched delivery, top edging a catch to deep square leg. Indian skipper Dhoni too fell to an irresponsible shot. Virat Kohli, after making a neat 77 (8*4, 1*6) needlessly ran himself out to a direct hit from Malinga, similar to his dismissal in the just concluded test series.
Sri Lankans have done their home work well and almost all the wickets of top and middle order were off short pitch deliveries, Indian batsmen’s weakness were exposed.
At this juncture, Ashwin joined hands with Ravindra Jadeja with India in a little bit of bother needing another 53 runs and a wicket at that stage, Malinga would have ran through the tail as he often does. But the two youngsters managed to keep out the slinger by playing him sensibly for singles and twos. Malinga would not have enjoyed new ball at both ends as it does not get too old for him to reverse swing at the death. Sri Lanka would have rued the absence of a regular spinner at that stage.
Earlier in the afternoon, Sri Lanka under the new captaincy of Mahela Jayawardene won the toss and decided to bat first under the hot and humid conditions at Perth. They managed to get 233 runs for the loss of 8 wickets at the end of 50 overs, probably 30 runs short of par score at WACA.
Zaheer Khan who was included in this game and Vinay Kumar bowled well with the new ball while Praveen Kumar had an off day with the ball. Indian spinners, Ashwin and Jadeja bowled well in tandem taking 4 wickets between them. The Indian fielding was very good especially skipper Dhoni two stumpings and a brilliant catch to dismiss dangerous and well set Sangakkara, which probably was the turning point in the Sri Lankan innings.
This victory should give Indiathe much needed self belief to face the formidable Australians in future matches. India will take on Australia in their next game at Adelaide on Feb 12th.
