India beat SL in 1st ODI by 21 runs

Sangakkara’s elegent 133 was abortive as Sri Lanka lost the first ODI by 21 runs.

Losing Dilshan in the 2nd over meant Sangakkara came little earlier than he expected. He, along with Upul Tharanga, added 77 runs before Ashwin dismissed Tharanga for 28. Ashwin varied his pace and length well as he was a nightmare for the batsmen in the middle. His spell in the middle period of the innings put a hold over Sri lanka’s scoring rate. Jayawardene was dismissed cheaply by Ojha for 12 runs. When the chase looked out of sight, Perera came in with good cameo of 28 ball 44 comprising a 6 and 3 fours as Sri Lanka’s hopes increased. Runs were coming more fluently now than they were before. Sangakkara scored his 14th ODI century, his 5th against India. When he was castled for 133, hopes started to evade. Little late party by Malinga at the middle weren’t close enough to make Sri Lanka cross the line and eventually were left 22 runs short of the target set for them.

For India, Pathan was the pick of the bowlers. He picked 3 wickets for 37 runs. Ashwin ended up with figures 2/47. Despite going for runs, Yadav and Zaheer picked couple of wickets each.

Earlier, winning the toss, India elected to bat. They had a miserable start, losing Gambhir to Kulasekara who bowled the southpaw around his legs. Kohli, who then came in at number 3, joined hands with Virender Sehwag and scored 163 runs for the 2nd wicket. The duo rattled all the Lankan bowlers, who were looking rusty. The fielders too seemed to have butter fingers as they dropped sitters. Before Sehwag was ran out in a very casual manner, he had scored 96 runs. Meanwhile, Kohli scored his 12th ODI century. Late fireworks from Dhoni and Raina ensured India finishes at 314/6.

Perara took 3 wickets for 70 runs. Mathews and Kulasekara, who left the field half-way in the match due to groin injury, picked up a wicket each. Malinga went wicketless and finished with figures 0/83 – his worst figure in home matches.

Scoreboard:

India:

Gautam Gambhir b Kulasekara 3

Virender Sehwag run out (Perera) 96

Virat Kohli c sub (Senanayake) b Perera 106

Rohit Sharma b Mathews 5

Suresh Raina c sub (Senanayake) b Perera 50

Mahendra Singh Dhoni c Thirimanne b Perera 35

Irfan Pathan not out 7

Ravichandran Ashwin not out 0

Extras (b 1, lb 2, w 7, nb 2) 12

Total (for six wickets in 50 overs) 314

Fall of wickets: 1-7 (Gambhir, 2.2 overs), 2-180 (Sehwag, 31.3), 3-191 (Sharma, 33.6), 4-228 (Kohli, 39.6), 5-307 (Raina, 49.1), 6-307 (Dhoni, 49.2)

Bowling:

Nuwan Kulasekara 5-0-20-1

Lasith Malinga 10-0-83-0

Angelo Mathews 10-0-58-1

Thisara Perera 10-0-70-3

Tillekaratne Dilshan 5-0-28-0

Rangana Herath 10-0-52-0

Sri Lanka:

Upul Tharanga c Sehwag b Ashwin 28

Tillekaratne Dilshan lbw Pathan 6

Kumar Sangakkara b Yadav 133

Dinesh Chandimal c Dhoni b Yadav 13

Mahela Jayawardene lbw Ojha 12

Angelo Mathews c Gambhir b Khan 7

Lahiru Thirimanne lbw Ashwin 7

Thisara Perera c Kohli b Pathan 44

Rangana Herath run out (Raina) 0

Lasith Malinga not out 19

Nuwan Kulasekara not out 1

Extras (b 1, lb 6, w 16) 23

Total (for nine wickets in 50 overs) 293

Fall of wickets: 1-9 (Dilshan, 1.2 overs), 2-86 (Tharanga, 18.5), 3-117 (Chandimal, 25.2), 4-132 (Jayawardene, 28.3), 5-172 (Mathews, 35.2), 6-191 (Thirimanne, 38.2), 7-269 (Sangakkara, 47.1), 8-271 (Herath, 47.3), 9-275 (Perera, 48.2)

Bowling:

Zaheer Khan 10-0-63-1

Irfan Pathan 10-1-37-2

Umesh Yadav 10-0-76-2

Ravichandran Ashwin 10-1-46-2

Virender Sehwag 4-0-20-0

Pragyan Ojha 6-0-44-1

Toss: India, who chose to bat

Series: India lead the 5-match series 1-0

Player of the match: Virat Kohli (India)

Umpires: Ranmore Martinesz and Bruce Oxenford (Australia)

TV umpire: Ruchira Palliyaguruge

Match referee: Chris Broad (England)