Standing at fine-leg he muttered a few words to himself, did a little shadow practice of the balls he had just delivered through that over, and nodded his head in disagreement. Sreesanth has just received the pasting of his life—he went for 48 in his three overs—and he knows a lot of those balls didn’t deserve that down-and-over-the-fence treatment. That’s what Sanath Jayasuriya had done to every bowler right through his career. Today again, in just 22 minutes and 13 balls, he charted a course and set up the match in Sri Lanka’s favour. Tillekaratne Dilshan is no Jayasuriya though. Yet, having walked into the open for the first time in international cricket after experiments at home, he could so easily imitate his illustrious opening partner against a set of established Indian bowling attack. That was the freedom downloaded straight from the latest Twenty20 version, and Team India can feel letdown for not getting similar privileges and having forced to configure their innings through different software which had limited compatibility to high-speed browsing.India were done in by the early morning thundershowers, and again by the late afternoon drizzle. Asked to bat first on a wicket that was a bit damp, 29 overs required more caution and a similar-to-normal one-day-game mindset—195/5 was a good total on a wicket that had some movement and bounce for the bowlers. But when India bowled, they were forced to defend in the T20 format. After the long interruption at lunch, Sri Lanka were never required to flinch for a second in their approach for a revised D/L target of 154 in 21 overs. Dilshan and skipper Mahela Jayawardene completed the chase in an 85-run partnership with two overs and eight wickets to spare in their comforts of collecting four points at the Manuka Oval. As the tri-series entered the second half, India are still leading the table with eight points while Australia (7) and Lanka (6) just a point adrift of each other. Interestingly, Dilshan almost missed this match with a knee infection but turned in a Man of the Match performance. The 31-year-old hit an unbeaten 63 in just 59 balls with six fours and a hit over the fine-leg fence off Sreesanth to lead the charge that was tuned in the third over of the second half. Jayasuriya plundered 23 off Sreesanth’s second over that went like this: wd, 2, 6, wd, 0, 4, 6, 3 and included a shot hitting the last row of chairs in backward square-leg and an uppish cut over backward point boundary. He was out five balls later on a personal score of 27 trying to pull a short ball from Ishant Sharma and got the top of his bat and glove and straight into Dhoni’s gloves. The score was 45 by then and next man Kumara Sangakkara came and went back at the introduction of Harbhajan Singh, but most of the time it was a simple run-a-ball affair that was handled with the calmness of Jayawardene and the striking abilities of Dilshan, who reached his half-century in 47 balls with five boundaries and a six. Harbhajan bowled a superb spell of four overs with subtle variations in flight and speed and Ishant went flat out in search of a breakthrough but it was getting clearer that nothing could save Rohit Sharma’s highest ODI score going waste. Irfan Pathan failed after a promising start and Sreesanth’s return remained dismal as part-timers Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag couldn’t stop the run-flow. The duo, however, did provide a good start with the bat, particularly Tendulkar,who started off with a hit over covers and followed it up with a paddle off Vaas and glanced the other new-ball bowler Malinga towards the gap behind square to a ball that was outside off stump. His innovations ended in the same third-man area as Sehwag but Tendulkar got a thick-outside edge off a booming cover-drive while his partner played the upper cut. Though they fell in quick succession of each other, another partnership between Gautam Gambhir and Rohit raised 64 runs in 70 balls and they handled the likes of Muralitharan, Vaas, Malinga and Maharoof with great maturity. Rohit’s unbeaten 70 from 64 balls were culled from frantic running between the wickets and a dash of innovations to steal runs behind the wickets. Gambhir fell in an unnecessary attempt to force a run when there was nothing at stake and his exit brought in Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The two immediately sensed the urgency of the last nine overs in hand with some quick running between the wickets and turning it on with big shots. Rohit banged Muralitharan for a six over mid-wicket and soon reached his half-century off 54 balls with four boundaries. From the other end, Dhoni reserved two boundaries in an over from Maharoof and India looked to once again depress the Lankans with late overs assault. Dhoni fell after an enterprising 35 from 33 balls and the entry of Yuvraj, demoted in the batting order and woefully out of form, didn’t click despite a first-ball boundary. How much confidence the team has in his batting was reflected when he came in at No. 6 in a 29-over match. Rohit’s amazing stamina endured his blazing bat and just as he walked back raising his bat in acknowledgement, black clouds had engulfed the ground. Once again, it seemed that Lanka would miss out on their batting, but a harmless downpour instead did a great damage for India. ScoreboardIndia: V Sehwag c Muralitharan b Kulasekara 14, S Tendulkar c Kulasekara b Maharoof 32, G Gambhir run out 35, R Sharma not out 70, MS Dhoni run out 31, Y Singh c Muralitharan b Malinga 6, R Uthappa not out 0; Extras: (lb1, w6) 7; TOTAL: (for 5 wickets, 29 overs) 195; Fall of wickets: 1-45, 2-49, 3-113, 4-181, 5-192Bowling: Vaas 6-1-39-0, Malinga 6-0-45-1, Maharoof 6-0-33-1, Kulasekara 6-0-41-1, Muralitharan 5-0-36-0Sri Lanka : T Dilshan not out 62, S Jayasuriya c Dhoni b I Sharma 27, K Sangakkara c I Sharma b Harbhajan Singh 10, M Jayawardene not out 36Extras: (lb6, w10, nb3) 19; TOTAL: (for two wickets; 19 overs) 154; Fall of wickets: 1-45, 2-69Bowling: Sreesanth 3-0-48-0, Ishant 4-0-27-1, Pathan 4-0-29-0, Harbhajan 4-0-15-1, Tendulkar 2-0-15-0, Sehwag 2-0-14-0
