The shockingly clueless Indian batting unit was strangled by crafty Sri Lankan spinners, led by five-wicket man Dunith Wellalage, as Rohit Sharma’s men crashed to an embarrassing 110-run defeat in the third and final ODI in Colombo on Wednesday. (As It Happened | Scorecard)
Sri Lanka won the three𒊎-match series 2-0 after the first match ended in a tie, a🌌nd this is the Islanders’ first bilateral ODI series victory over India since 1997.
Chasing a competitive 249 on a sharp turner at Premadasa, India were bowled out for a woeful 138 in 26.1 overs, and the new head coach Gautam Gambhir will have a few hard points🎶 to ponder early into his stint.
The lefඣt-arm spinner Wellalage, who hurt India with the bat till now, chose to bruise the visito👍rs by ball-taking five for 27 after opener Avishka Fernando made a well-paced 96 to carry Lanka to 248 for seven.
However, India had a rather good beginning, despite the early departure of Shubman Gill, tಞo their🎐 chase, courtesy of Rohit Sharma’s breakneck 35 off 20 balls that included an 18-run over off Maheesh Theekshana.
The runs cascaded thr✃ough a ಞsequence of 6, 4, 4, 4 in the fourth over of the innings.
But sweep, one of the favoured shots of Rohit, brought the downfall of the Indian skipper. His attempt to play it off Wellalage ended in the hands of Kusal Mendis behind the stumps.
Once Rohit walked back, t🧸he rest of the Indian batters were submerged in a whirlpool of confusion.
Virat Kohli (20) played for the turn when there was none and𝕴 was adjudged leg ℱbefore to Wellalage.
Rishabh Pant, who was playing his first ODI after his comeback from that horrific car crash, trotted down the track and w🤡as beaten in the air by Theekshana to eventually get stumped by Kusal.
Riyan Parag, who made his ODI debut while coming in place of Arshdeep Singh, offered no shot to a straight one from leg-spinner Jeffrey Vandersay to get bowled.
In between, Shreyas Iyer also fell leg before to Wellalage, taking the toꦫtal number of lbw and clean bowled dismissals in this Indian innings to seven, and no other crumb of statistics will offer a clearer picture of th🌳e muddled Indian minds than that.
"Weཧ knew they are used to small grounds and good wickets in India. So they would struggle on a big Premadasa ground. We knew we could get an advantage with some turn on the wicket, and we have good spinners," Theekshana's post-match TV comments with reference to tracks use𝔍d during ODI World Cup, was like rubbing salt to the wound.
Before their spinners pushed Indian batters deep into trouble, Lanka managed to work through the Indian bowling through opener Avishka Fernando (96, 102 balls, ♋9x4, 2x6) and Kusal (59, 82b, 4x4).
India fought through an excellent spell of off-spin by Parag (3/54) ♓but apart from Kuldᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚeep Yadav (1/36), there was no real assistance for him.
Fernando’s knock handheld the home side during the most assured batting phase yet in this series, before Parag engineered a familiar mid-inning🐟s collapse on a pitch where the proportions of turn increased from mid-way 🐬of Sri Lankan innings.
But none of it could take away credit from the effort of Fernando, who stitched two fine partnerships – an 89 for the opening wicket with Pathum Nissanka (45, 🐎65b, 5x4, 2x6) and 82 with Kusal for꧋ the second wicket.
Nissanka ofte🐼n matched his associate in aggression, evidenced by the two slog-swept sixes off left-arm spinner Axar Patel.
But the blooming st🅰and was cut short by Axar when Nissanka slammed a wide delivery into the hands ♔of Pant.
Lanka stayed ahead of In♕dia through the Fernando-Kusal partner��ship, and the former was the enforcer.
Fernando spoiled theꦚ figures of Mohammed Siraj (1/65 in 8 overs), who was unusually wayward in his line and 🐭length.
In fact, the Lankan right-hander enjo🏅yed the extra speed of Siraj that enabled him to unfurl his bread-and-butter pull shot twice in a row to muscle the Indian for ꦅsixes.
However, just when he was 𝓡within touching distance of his fourth ODI hundred, Fernando missed a skiddy leg-break fr✃om Parag to get caught in front of the wicket.
At 171 for two in the 36th over,𓆏 Lanka had an excellent platform to push🌃 towards a total in the vicinity of 280 or more.
But Parag removed skipper Charith Asalanka (10), who was trapped leg before, and Wellalag♐e (2) denied Lan🏅ka the late-order momentum.
But Kusal and Kamindu Mendis added 36 runs for the seventh wicket to takeཧ the match well beyond India’s reach.
