Dunith Wellalage’s brilliant all-round performance couldn’t help his team to get the victory as India defeated Sri Lanka by 41 runs and reached the finals of the Asia Cup.
India defended the low scoring match as they put 213/10 in 49.1 overs and in reply Lankans only scored 172/10 in 41.3 overs. Also India break the Sri Lanka 13 winning streak
Rohit and company now have 4 points in 2 matches and they cleared the Super Four round and reached the finals. Yesterday they won against Pakistan by a brilliant performance of 3K (Kohli, KL and Kuldeep) by 228 runs. Whereas Sri Lanka will meet Pakistan in the knockout, as the winner will go to finals. Lanka already won their previous match against Bangladesh by 21 runs.
Rohit Sharma after winning the toss opted to bat first.
India gets a pretty good start as their openers Rohit Sharma (53 runs) and Shubman Gill (19 runs) put 80 runs for the first wicket. Rohit was looking highly destructive in his innings as he took 48 balls to go there and hit 7 fours and 2 sixes. Sharma also completed his 10000 international ODI runs in this match.
KL Rahul (39 runs) and Ishan Kishan (33 runs) added 63 more runs for the 5th wicket. After these two departures, the team started losing wickets and only Axar Patel (26 runs) played little cameo in the end and took India to 213 runs in 49.1 overs and all the players got out.
Dunith Wellalage the young bowler showed a pure talent against the great batsman in front of him as he grabbed 5 wickets by giving away only 40 runs. It was also his first 5 wicket haul in the ODIs. Charith Asalanka the part timer also showed his spin magic and took 4 wickets. Maheesh Theekshana got 1 wicket.
Sri Lanka from the start looked highly difficult to play against the Indian bowlers. Not only this they lost 6 wickets in just 99 runs. They were unable to maintain good partnerships. Then Dunith Wellalage (42 runs) and Dhananjaya de Silva (41 runs) put 63 runs for the 7th wicket. Wellalage here also showed his skills in batting and he hit 3 fours and a six.
After the departure of de Silva, remaining 3 wickets fell just by adding 10 runs only. Finally they managed to put 172 runs on the board in 41.3 overs and all of them got out.
Kuldeep Yadav again struck with his wrist spin and grabbed 4 wickets. His wicket taking ability is phenomenal. He also completed his 150 international ODI wickets. Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah got 2 wickets each. Jadeja also completed his 200 international wicket. Mohammad Siraj and Hardik Pandya took 1 wicket each.
Dunith Wellalage, Sri Lanka, Player of the Match
“First of all I want to congratulate the Indian Team. They have so many experienced players but unfortunately we lost the game but we have another game and we want to put up a good fight. Kuldeep is a great bowler. I tried to play my normal game with a positive mindset. I want to thank my team-mates and my coaching staff, they gave me great support.”