The shockingly clueless Indian batting unit was strangled by artful Sri Lankan spinners, led by five-wicket man Dunith Wellalage, as Rohit Sharma’s males crashed to an embarrassing 110-run defeat within the third and last ODI in Colombo on Wednesday. Sri Lanka gained the three-match collection 2-0 after the primary match led to a tie, and that is the Islanders’ first bilateral ODI collection victory over India since 1997. Chasing a aggressive 249 on a pointy turner at Premadasa, India had been bowled out for a woeful 138 in 26.1 overs, and the brand new head coach Gautam Gambhir could have a couple of onerous factors to ponder early into his stint.
The left-arm spinner Wellalage, who damage India with the bat until now, selected to bruise the guests by ball taking 5 for 27 after opener Avishka Fernando made a well-paced 96 to hold Lanka to 248 for seven.
Nonetheless, India had a somewhat good starting, regardless of the early departure of Shubman Gill, to their chase, courtesy Rohit Sharma’s breakneck 35 off 20 balls that included an 18-run over off Maheesh Theekshana.
The runs cascaded via a sequence of 6, 4, 4, 4 within the fourth over of the innings.
However sweep, one of many favoured pictures of Rohit, introduced the downfall of the Indian skipper. His try to play it off Wellalage ended within the arms of Kusal Mendis behind the stumps.
As soon as Rohit walked again, the remainder of the Indian batters submerged right into a whirlpool of confusion.
Virat Kohli (20) performed for flip when there was none and was adjudged leg earlier than to Wellalage.
Rishabh Pant, who was enjoying his first ODI after his comeback from that horrific automobile crash, trotted down the observe and was overwhelmed within the air by Theekshana to ultimately get stumped by Kusal.
Riyan Parag, who made his ODI debut whereas coming instead of Arshdeep Singh, supplied no shot to a straight one from leg-spinner Jeffrey Vandersay to get bowled.
In between, Shreyas Iyer additionally fell leg earlier than to Wellalage, taking the overall variety of lbw and clear bowled dismissals on this Indian innings to seven, and no different crumb of statistics will provide a clearer image of the muddled Indian minds than that.
“We knew they’re used to small grounds and good wickets in India. So they might battle on a giant Premadasa floor. We knew we might get a bonus with some activate the wicket, and we have now good spinners,” Theekshana’s submit match TV feedback as regards to tracks used throughout ODI World Cup, was like rubbing salt to the wound.
Earlier than their spinners pushed Indian batters deep into hassle, Lanka managed to work via the Indian bowling via opener Avishka Fernando (96, 102 balls, 9×4, 2×6) and Kusal (59, 82b, 4×4).
India fought via a superb spell of off-spin by Parag (3/54) however aside from Kuldeep Yadav (1/36) there was no actual help for him.
Fernando’s knock handheld the house facet throughout essentially the most assured batting part but on this collection, earlier than Parag engineered a well-recognized mid-innings collapse on a pitch the place the proportions of flip elevated from mid-way of Sri Lankan innings.
However none of it might take away credit score from the hassle of Fernando, who stitched two positive partnerships – an 89 for the opening wicket with Pathum Nissanka (45, 65b, 5×4, 2×6) and 82 with Kusal for the second wicket.
Nissanka typically matched his affiliate in aggression, evidenced by the 2 slog swept sixes off left-arm spinner Axar Patel.
However the blooming stand was lower brief by Axar when Nissanka slammed a large supply into the arms of Pant.
Lanka stayed forward of India via the Fernando-Kusal partnership, and the previous was the enforcer.
Fernando spoiled the figures of Mohammed Siraj (1/65 in 8 overs), who was unusually wayward in his line and size.
Actually, the Lankan right-hander loved the additional pace of Siraj that enabled him to unfurl his bread and butter pull shot twice in a row to muscle the Indian for sixes.
Nonetheless, simply when he was inside touching distance of his fourth ODI hundred, Fernando missed a skiddy leg-break from Parag to get caught in entrance of the wicket.
At 171 for 2 within the thirty sixth over, Lanka had a superb platform to push in direction of a complete within the neighborhood of 280 or extra.
However Parag eliminated skipper Charith Asalanka (10), who was trapped leg earlier than, and Wellalage (2) that denied Lanka the late-order momentum.
However Kusal and Kamindu Mendis added 36 runs for the seventh wicket to take the match effectively past India’s attain.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
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