Journalism of Courage
India cruised to a comfortable six-wicket win over Sri Lanka in Colombo on Sunday. The victory means that India have won the series 5-0. It is the first time ever that Sri Lanka have been whitewashed at home in a bilateral ODI series. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Virat Kohli were the stars of the show with ball and bat. Kumar, who failed to get a single wicket in the series so far, got a fifer in the Sri Lankan innings while Kohli scored a composed century to see India through. It was his 30th ODI century and he is only behind Sachin Tendulkar in terms of most number of centuries scored by a player in ODI history. (Source: Reuters)
Bhuvneshwar Kumar was the man who got the breakthrough for India with the wicket of Niroshan Dickwella. Kumar also got Dilshan Munaweera and that was thanks to a brilliant catch from Virat Kohli. Captain Upul Tharanga fell to Jasprit Bumrah after a quickfire 48. (Source: PTI)
Angelo Mathews and Lahiru Thirimanne then stemmed the fall of wickets for Sri Lanka. It was rare act of resistance from the Sri Lankan batsmen as the two gave the good balls its due respect and metted out proportional treatment to the bad ones. They made a stand of 122 which is the highest fourth wicket stand for Sri Lanka against India in ODIs. (Source: Reuters)
But it was back to square one for the hosts after the fall of Thirimane's wicket. Sri Lanka were 185/4 at that point. Soon Mathews followed suit and so did the rest of the Sri Lankan batting line up. They were all out for 238. (Source: Reuters)
India experienced a shaky start to their chase. Ajinkya Rahane, who replaced Shikhar Dhawan at the top of the order, was dismissed early by Lasith Malinga. India also lost Rohit Sharma not long after that. (Source: Reuters)
Virat Kohli, who had come on after the dismissal of Rahane was joined in the middle by Manish Pandey. The duo steadied the ship for India and built a partnership by 99 runs. Pandey was dismissed by Pushpakumara but by that point India were already halfway through. Kedar Jadhav joined Kohli in the middle and the two continued along the same calm manner. (Source: Reuters)
Virat Kohli scored his 30th ODI ton in the process of taking India to victory. This ties him with Ricky Ponting for the second most number of centuries scored by a batsman in ODI cricket history. Sachin Tendulkar tops the charts with 49 tons. Interestingly, both Tendulkar and Ponting took far more matches than Kohli to get to 30 ODI centuries. (Source: AP)
MS Dhoni took the wheel as the players got onto the Multix that was awarded to man of the series Jasprit Bumrah. Bumrah and Kumar, whose wickets have helped India win the series and the match respectively, chose to sit behind and see the pitch go bye from under their feet, just as how they pulled it from under Sri Lanka's feet a few hours earlier. (Source: PTI)
