25th July, 2012, Hambantota (Sri Lanka): Sri Lanka registered a convincing nine wicket win against India on Tuesday after the visitors displayed a poor batting performance. Batting first, India made only 138 runs in 33.3 overs. In reply, Sri Lanka reached the target in just 19.5 overs losing only one wicket. Openers Upul Tharanga and Tillakaratne Dilshan made 59 and 50 respectively.
At present, the 5 – match series is tied at 1 – 1 at present. After the match India skipper Dhoni told that the wicket was next to the pitch they played last time, but this pitch behaved totally different. At first, the wicket was a bit slower, but when Kohli got out, India lost several wickets very quickly.
“Before the batsmen could assess the wicket, we lost two wickets played-on. I thought after that it was too much for batsmen like Irfan and Ashwin to come in and take us out of trouble,” added Dhoni.
Dhoni’s Sri Lankan counterpart Mahela Jayawardene did not agree with the Indian captain. He told, “Probably a touch slower, but there were quite a few good balls as well. We bowled in good areas, created pressure, maybe couple of bad shots as well but I will take that any day.”
“The important thing with the Indian batting line-up is picking up wickets and that’s the only way we can control things and that is what we did today,” he said.
