Kumar Sangakkara starred with his highest Twenty20 score, a serenely-destructive 37-ball 78, as Sri Lanka thumped India by 29 runs in Nagpur. Chamara Kapugedera pitched in with a cameo to charge Sri Lanka to 215, a total that proved too much for India, who fell away after a promising start provided by Gautam Gambhir.Gambhir tried valiantly with a counter-attacking fifty but it was Sangakkara who stole the show.
Sangakkara's innings sparked off in the ninth over against Pragyan Ojha's left-arm spin. He chipped the first delivery he faced from Ojha over mid-on, swept the next to the boundary and lifted the third for a six over long-on. There were more classy strikes, the highlight being a chipped shot over mid-on to a length delivery from the debutant Ashok Dinda. Sangakkara's predetermined shots also came off perfectly: when he shuffled to the off side, the ball was invariably so full that it was easily lapped around the corner; when he moved outside leg, he flat-batted short-of-length deliveries over mid-on or mid-off.
Despite Virender Sehwag's fall in the third over, Gambhir helped India take 76 from the Powerplay but their hopes started to sink with his departure. Gambhir's was a cheeky yet intelligent innings and he peppered the off-side field with his well-timed drives - the highlight being a sequence of seven fours from nine deliveries spread over two overs from Lasith Malinga and Nuwan Kulasekara. Despite a crowded field - a short point, backward point, cover point and cover were in place - he stole five of those seven boundaries through the off side. However, he fell while trying to paddle sweep Angelo Mathews and India lost four more wickets, including those of MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh, in three overs as the chase derailed spectacularly. The bowling was disciplined, without ever being threatening, but India were done in by the pressure of the steep run-rate.
0 comments:
Post a Comment