Sri Lanka humbled India and Pakistan
By A.C. De Silva
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In run-making mood... Aravinda de Silva (Sri Lanka) in a fine-making mood
when Sri Lanka played against India. He was particularly
severe on the Indian spinners. He made 69 in the total of
271 for 6 wickets and helped Sri Lanka to beat India who
were all out for 254 in 44 overs
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A hefty hit to leg... Sri Lanka’s Arjuna Ranatunga makes a mighty hit to
the fence for 4. he made 49 in the Sri Lanka score of 271
for 6 wickets and Sri Lanka went on to win the match as
India were all out for 254 in 44 overs |
Sri Lanka all the way... Lankans did it. They took on the strong duo
of subcontinent and humbled both India and Pakistan in the space of
three days in the first two matches in the Asia Cup Tournament 1988.
The might of the Sri Lankan batting clearly showed up and they gave a
five exhibition of batting when they played against India, making 271
for 6 wickets in 45 overs.
Having lost the toss, the Lankans had to do it the hard way. They had
to recover from the early overs and after being 52 for 2 wickets when
openeres R. Mahama and Brendon Kuruppu were out early and the scoreboard
was not a pleaging one with 52 for 2, the batting of Athula Somarasekera
(66) and Aravinda de Silva (69) got the Sri Lankans on the move and a
126 - run partnership between them put the Lankans on the road to
recovery and safety. Samarasekera settled to play the anchor role while
Aravinda de Silva was superb in stroke - play and was superb as the
striker of the ball and saw the cherry all the way from the bowler's
hand from the very first one he faced.
Aravinda thrived with bowling
Aravinda was in midseason form and thrived when the Indian spinners
bowled plenty of loose balls and Aravinda gave the treatment they
deserved. He but them so hard that there was danger of this coming off
the work.
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Athula Samarasekera (Sri Lanka) cuts down on Indian spinners
and he made 66 before he was finally out – bowled by India’s
Srikkanth. Sri Lanka made 271 for 6 wickets in 45 overs. |
There was Maheni when Hirwane way introduced into the attack.
Maninder was being taken apart too and finally the only 'spinner' who
managed to keep the batsmen somewhat quiet, was Srikanth and all know
that he does not turn the ball so much.
It was a good lesson for Asian batsmen to know that the Sri Lankan
batsmen can play sin well and they are well known that the Lankan
batsmen can be particularly happy to go acroos the line when they are in
form. There was also Arjuna Ranatunga who two, batted well to make 49
not out and the Sri Lankans took good advantage of the good playing
surface so, Sri Lanka finally made 271 for six wickets in 45 overs.
India disappoints
Conditions were good for batting and India, though expected to play
well in their team, disappointed.
Though the Indian openers K. Srikkanth (42) and N. sidhu (50) but on
a good opening partnership of 89, the rest of the batsmen somewhat
disappointed and showed that the middle order does not have the meat
anymore. The only middle-order batsman to make some runs in the
middle-order was D. Vengsarkar (34) and M. Azharuddin (also 34) who came
off with some satisfying innings.
There was, of course, some great entertainment to be had in the lower
down the order batsman Sanjeev Sharma (28) and earlier on there was good
hitting by M. Azharuddin who made some lasly hits to collect 34 runs.
India were all out for 254 in 44 overs.
Of the Sri Lanka's bowlers Wijegunewardene had the best bigovers of 4
for 49. So, Sri Lanka won by 17 runs.
Scoreboard
SRI LANKA
R. Mahanama lbw b Mohinder Amaranath 21
B. Kuruppu b Sanjeev Sharma 16
A. Samarasekera b Srikkanth 66
A. de Silva lbw b Arshad Ayub 69
A. Ranatunga not out 49
D. Mendis c Mohinder b Kapil Dev 19
R. Ratnayake b Kapil Dev 16
H. Tillekeratne not out 02
EXTRAS (lb 9, wd 1, nb 3) 13
TOTAL (for 6 wkts in 45 overs) 271
WICKETS FELL AT: 1-35, 2-52, 3-178, 4-184, 5-216, 6-269.
BOWLING (India) :Kapil Dev 9-0-39-2
Sanjeev Sharma 8-1-44-1
Mohinder Amarnath 4-0-27-0
Mahinder Singh 5-0-26-0
N. Nirwani 4-0-38-0
Arshad Ayub 9-0-58-1
K. Srikkanth 6-0-30-1
INDIA
K. Srikkanth c Mahanama b Ranatunga 42
N. Sidhu c Kuruppu b Ranatunga 50
M. Amarnath run out 31
D. Vengsarkar c wijegunawardene b De Silva 34
Kapil Dev lbw b Wijegunawardene 07
M. Azharuddin c Madurasinghe b Ratnayake 34
K. More c Ratnayake b Wijegunawardene 06
Arshad Ayub run out 09
S. Sharma c Tillekeratne b Wijegunawardene 28
Maninder Singh c De Silva b Wijegunawardene 07
N. Hirwani not out 01
EXTRAS (lb 1, w 3, nb 1) 05
TOTAL (in 44 overs ) 254
WICKETS FELL AT: 1-89, 2-96, 3-146, 4-166, 5-167, 6-182, 7-195, 8-224, 9-252.
BOWLING (Sri Lanka): R. Ratnayake 8-0-47-1
Ramanayake 8-0-36-0
Wijegunawardene 9-0-49-4
Samarasekera 2-0-17-0
Ranatunga 5-0-27-2
Madurasinghe 6-0-41-0
A. de Silva 6-0-36-1 |
