Bhuvi and Dhoni rescue India to a three wicket win
As has been the case on this tour, India won the toss and like the first ODI decided to bowl first. The decision was proven right when Sri Lanka were restricted to 236/8 (50).
The Sri Lankan batters again failed to get a high score in this game and repeated the same mistakes. The only batsman to score a fifty was Milinda Siriwardana (58).
If it was not for Siriwardana and Chamara Kapugedera’s 91 run partnership, Sri Lanka would have even struggled to get to 200.
For India, Jasrit Bumrah (4/43) was the pick of the bowlers. Chahal, Axar Patel and Hardik Pandya were the other guys who got the wickets. Bhuvneshewar didn’t got a wicket but didn’t bowl that bad.
Set a target of 237 runs, India were made to wait to chase the runs as due to rain. But when the rain stopped, Duckworth-Lewis method came into play and the target was revised to 231 from 47 overs.
Last match’s hero Shikhar Dhawan started carefully, but the guy who captured all the eyeballs was Rohit Sharma (54). These two gave India the ideal start as the team were 109/0.
It looked one sided and India were cruising until Akila Dananjaya was introduced. He turned the game on it’s head registering figures of 6/54.
Shikhar was out by a brilliant catch from Angelo Mathews on 49. But the Indian middle order collapsed due to some high quality bowling from Dananjaya. Every batsman came and went so early as the match looked over for India.
This was when Bhuvi and Dhoni came together to take India home. Dhoni’s calmness and Bhuvi’s sincere batting efforts was what team India got. The result was them winning from an improbable situation.
Both Dhoni and Bhuvi got a match winning 100 runs partnership and took India home from 131/7 to 231/7.
I think Sri Lanka will be a little disheartened but their are some positives to take as well. On the other hand, India take a 2-0 lead in the series and continue their winning form moving ahead.
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