India did not do anything rash in pursuit of a second straight victory in the Micromax five-match One-Day International series against Sri Lanka in front of a packed house at Motera here on Thursday. It played with fixity of purpose and Ambati Rayudu (121,118b, 10x4, 4x6) showed the way with a truly classic effort that would have added many more to his admirers’ list.
After Ajinkya Rahane departed in the chase of 275, seasoned campaigner Shikhar Dhawan and Rayudu curbed their natural instincts and dashed the visitors’ hopes with a resolve to bat safely in order to achieve the end result which India did with six wickets and 33 balls to spare.
Riveted to the task for nearly three hours Rayudu gave a fitting finish, slamming an inside-out shot that hit the cover boundary rope.
The second-wicket pair of Dhawan and Rayudu showed no haste at all; they did not lift the ball in the direction of the fielders, ran hard the singles and twos and hit out fours and sixes only when they felt the shots would race to the boundary or sail over it into the stands.
It was an extraordinary display; they added 122 runs for the second wicket off 121 balls and then Rayudu and skipper Virat Kohli secured the match with a 98-ball 116 for the third wicket.
Rayudu, playing his 21st match and promoted to No. 3, became the 35th Indian batsman to score an ODI century, but more significantly proved the vast potential predicted by former India coach Greg Chappell.
Earlier, Sri Lanka seemed to have had a good first session. Angelo Mathews won the toss and gladly chose to bat in the hope that after the first three-and-a-half hours his bowlers would get some leeway to work out a strategy to make early gains, contain the middle-order, bring the home team under pressure.
What the Lankan skipper would not have probably imagined was that he himself would turn out to be the main cog around which the team could drag the score to around the 300-run mark after the fall of the first three wickets by the completion of the 14th over.
Fearless execution
In the event Mathews’ fearless execution of shots took him to eight runs short of his first century in 135 ODIs.
But, most crucially from the team’s point of view, he stitched a profitable 54-run stand for the ninth wicket off 42 balls with Dhammika Prasad. It was an admirable undertaking from the Sri Lankan captain to take charge of the proceedings
Umesh Yadav won an appeal for leg before against Kusal Perera to finish the first over of the match on a bright note. However, Tillakaratne Dilshan was quick to spot and punish the error in length twice by Umesh in his second over by hitting two boundaries on the off-side.
Yadav and Ishant Sharma were able to keep the scoring rate under considerable check in the first nine PowerPlay overs.
Summoned to the middle at the end of the first over, Kumar Sangakkara brought his 381-match experience to the fore and held firm for a little over 31 overs. Dilshan, making the most of the last PowerPlay over, lifted the score from a dismal 35 for one to an encouraging 53 for one by throwing R. Ashwin’s first over into complete disarray.
He cover-drove, stepped out and hit over the bowler’s head twice and swept the ball to the fence to pick up 18 runs off the 10th over bowled by the off-spinner.
Local hero Axar Patel, cheered every ball by the near full house, brought an abrupt end to Dilshan’s brave effort in his very first over.
Sri Lanka recovered a great deal through the fourth-wicket stand of 90 between Sangakkara and Mathews and after the spinners had completed their quota of overs by the 44th, Yadav and Sharma conceded nine runs an over in the last six which once again exposed India’s limitations at the death.
