ARAVINDA DESILVA.Man of the Match. COLOMBO, Aug 24: Invited to savour victory, the Indian side settled for defeat once again. Losing the rescheduled third and final one day here by just nine runs, they allowed Sri Lanka to make a clean sweep of the series and capped off a disastrous tour with an eminently forgettable innings.India proved unequal to the task of chasing even the modest total of 264 that the Sri Lankans had set them, committing a series of blunders to finish at 255. After captain Sachin Tendulkar and Saurav Ganguly sacrificed themselves playing careless shots, India pinned their hopes on another good partnership between Ajay Jadeja and Mohammed Azharuddin.Standing together for a partnership of 56 runs, the two did for a while put India on victory's doorstep, taking the side to 221 in the 44th over. But just as it seemed that the visitors might be able to salvage something yet of this tour, they were both run-out within 10 balls of each other, trying to steal a single out of impossible situations, thus bringing Sri Lanka right back into the game.Two more wickets fell rapidly after that and in the end, Nayan Mongia and Nilesh Kulkarni could hardly be blamed for not being able to run 19 off 12 balls. Giving some cause for concern to all cricket-loving Indians, Sachin Tendulkar said later that the ``guys did their best'' but that nothing was clicking right.``I hope this does not happen to us at the Sahara Cup,'' he said, voicing the worst fears of all Indians of a carnage by the Pakistan team at Toronto next month.With this match, India finished their Sri Lanka tour, unable to win any of the six encounters against Sri Lanka the hosts won five, while one match on Saturday was called off due to bad light - and winning just one match against newcomers Bangladesh in the Asia Cup.Batting first, Sri Lanka were not able to amass their usual huge total as openers Sanath Jayasuriya and Marvan Atapattu were dismissed cheaply.But Aravinda de Silva, who hit his ninth one-day century, saved the day for his side by sharing a third wicket stand of 83 and a fifth wicket stand of 82, to bring the total to 264. Both Roshan Mahanama and Lanka de Silva scored 50, for the latter, his first.SCOREBOARDSri Lanka: S Jayasuriya c Jadeja b Kuruvilla 3; M Atapattu c Azharuddin b Kuruvilla 3; R Mahanama b Kulkarni 50; A de Silva c Azharuddin b Kulkarni 104; A Ranatunga b Kulkarni 3; L de Silva c Tendulkar b Kuruvila 50; U Chandana b Chauhan 16; D Liyanage c Jadeja b Tendulkar 20; K Dharmasena run out 1; M Muralitharan c Tendulkar b Kuruvilla 7, S de Silva, not out 0, Extras: (lb1, w1, nb5) 7 Total: (all out, 49.4 overs) 264Fall of wickets: 1-3, 2-22, 3-105, 4-113, 5-195, 6-226, 7-254, 8-256, 9-264 Bowling: Prasad 6-0-31-0 (2nb); Kuruvila 8.4-1-43-4; Kulkarni 10-0-73-3 (1w); Chauhan 10-0-43-1; Singh 7-0-32-0 (2nb), Tendulkar 5-0-22-1; Ganguly 8-0-19-0INDIA: S Tendulkar c L de Silva b S de Silva 39, Ganguly c&b S de Silva 17; R Singh c Kalpage b Muralitharan 28; R Dravid c Chandana b Jayasuriya 42; A Jadeja run out 22; M Azharuddin run out 65; R Chauhan c Liyanage b Chandana 4; Kuruvilla c&b S Jayasuriya 7; N Mongia not out 13; Nilesh Kulkarni not out 3; Extras: (b9, lb1; w2, nb2) 14 Total: (for 8 wkts in 50 overs) 255.Fall of wickets: 1-50; 2-78; 3-107; 4-165; 5-121, 6-227; 7-235; 8-245Bowling: S de Silva 8-0-48-2; D Liyanage 5-1-36-0 (2w); K Dharmasena 9-0-33-0; Muralitharan 10-0-41-1 (2nb); S Jasuriya 10-0-56-2, Chandana 8-0-31-1
