NatWest Series [South Africa in England] – 5th ODI England v South Africa

2008 season

	South Africa innings (43 overs maximum)			R	M	B	4s	6s	SR
		HH Gibbs	c Prior b Broad	3	5	7	0	0	42.85
		HM Amla	not out	3	13	6	0	0	50.00
		JH Kallis	not out	0	7	5	0	0	0.00
		Extras		0
		Total	(1 wicket; 3 overs; 13 mins)	6	(2.00 runs per over)

Did not bat AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, MV Boucher, JL Ontong, J Botha, M Morkel, DW Steyn, A Nel

	Bowling	O	M	R	W	Econ
	JM Anderson	2	0	6	0	3.00
	SCJ Broad	1	1	0	1	0.00

	England team

IR Bell, MJ Prior, OA Shah, KP Pietersen, A Flintoff, PD Collingwood, SR Patel, LJ Wright, SCJ Broad, SJ Harmison, JM Anderson

Toss England, who chose to field first
Series England won the 5-match series 4-0

- About Cricket -
Sandesh Kumar Jaggi

Sri Lanka v India, 5th ODI, Colombo

Sri Lanka 226 for 6 (Thushara 54*, Mubarak 47*) beat India 103 (Kulasekara 4-40, Mendis 4-10) by 112 runs on D/L method

Scorecard

	Man of the Match Nuwan Kulasekara took the first four wickets to fall in India’s chase

Sri Lanka’s opening bowlers ensured their side maintained its record of not losing four consecutive ODIs at home as they beat India in the final ODI in Colombo. While one of them took career-best figures, the other got his career-best score.

Nuwan Kulasekara dismissed the Indian top order, troubling the batsmen with movement off the seam, after Thilan Thushara had scored a half-century to boost a faltering Sri Lankan innings to 227. There followed a rain interruption and, when play resumed with six overs docked, India crumbled to Ajantha Mendis and Dilhara Fernando, losing seven wickets for 33 runs to finish on 103, their lowest score in Sri Lanka.

Chasing 228 – Mahela Jayawardene won the toss for the first time in the series and followed the winning strategy of batting first – Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli, were beaten by Kulasekara’s line but hung on to hit the loose deliveries for fours. Thushara, bowling immediately after his unbeaten 94-run stand with Jehan Mubarak, also got the ball to cut in and was unlucky to have an appeal for caught behind turned down off his first ball of the innings. The delivery landed on the seam and straightened with the angle and replays suggested it took the edge off Gambhir’s bat before reaching the keeper.

But Kulasekara got Gambhir soon after, with a tactic Sri Lanka had used earlier in the series. Kumar Sangakkara stood up to the stumps and Gambhir, perhaps distracted, edged the next ball to the keeper. While Thushara moved the ball away from Kohli, Kulasekara seamed it in and the batsman brought his front foot across the line only to be trapped in front. He beat Suresh Raina with a delivery that cut in to the left-hander before having him caught at midwicket.

Raina’s wicket was the turning point of the innings: it triggered a collapse that saw eight wickets fall for 33 runs. It had been drizzling when he was batting, and a reckless heave to midwicket was unpardonable for an in-form batsman, besides D/L calculations would have been the focus in the dressing room. The players went off right after Raina’s fall, and came back with the target revised to 216 off 44 overs, and Sri Lanka in the advantage.

That target would have been a lot smaller if not for Thushara’s innings. He joined Mubarak at the crease with Sri Lanka at 133 for 6. Though several boundaries came off edges in their partnership, Mubarak and Thushara rotated the strike, something the top order had failed to. Thushara drove and cut confidently to get to his maiden half-century. The two batsmen were kept quiet by left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha but attacked the wayward length of RP Singh and Irfan Pathan in the final ten overs.

The Sri Lankan top-order’s contribution would have looked even worse if not for the 77-run stand between left-handers Mahela Udawatte and Malinda Warnapura. They countered Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel’s tight bowling and settled down after the first Powerplay, working out the gaps in the field and choosing to tip and run in order to up the run-rate.

Zaheer tried to hurry them with shorter deliveries, but Udawatte picked out the loose balls over the in-field and forced the bowlers to vary their length, which only resulted in overpitched deliveries and more boundaries. The two added 39 between overs 10 and 15. Pathan dismissed Udawatte and Warnapura in the same over, but was largely ineffective from then on. Ojha troubled the lower order, bowling three successive maiden overs, as Sri Lanka added only 60 runs between overs 20 and 40.

The first innings, though, became inconsequential with India’s capitulation. Kulasekara, who took all three wickets to fall before the stoppage, trapped Rohit Sharma leg before on resumption. Ajantha Mendis and Dilhara Fernando stepped up to the plate after Kulasekara finished his quota of nine overs with 4 for 40. The last seven wickets fell in 11 overs: Mendis dismissed Yuvraj Singh for the third time in the series and wrapped up the tail, while Fernando generated bounce and movement to bowl Dhoni and have RP Singh caught by Jayawardene. As in the first ODI, this was an embarassing loss, but India had already secured the series in the previous match.

- About Cricket -

Sandesh Kumar Jaggi

India in Sri Lanka ODI Series – 5th ODI Sri Lanka v India

2008 season

	Sri Lanka innings (50 overs maximum)			R	M	B	4s	6s	SR
		ST Jayasuriya	c Ojha b Khan	1	8	8	0	0	12.50
		BSM Warnapura	c Gambhir b Pathan	30	84	44	4	0	68.18
		ML Udawatte	lbw b Pathan	43	79	55	6	0	78.18
		KC Sangakkara	c Gambhir b Singh	1	9	5	0	0	20.00
		DPMD Jayawardene	c Yuvraj Singh b Ojha	12	44	25	0	0	48.00
		CK Kapugedera	c Singh b Ojha	26	67	63	1	0	41.26
		J Mubarak	not out	47	88	55	3	0	85.45
		T Thushara	not out	54	59	46	6	0	117.39
		Extras	(lb 6, w 6, nb 1)	13
		Total	(6 wickets; 50 overs; 222 mins)	227	(4.54 runs per over)

	Bowling	O	M	R	W	Econ
	MM Patel	7	1	20	0	2.85
	Z Khan	10	1	49	1	4.90	(1nb)
	RP Singh	8	0	54	1	6.75	(3w)
	IK Pathan	10	0	52	2	5.20	(3w)
	PP Ojha	10	4	28	2	2.80
	RG Sharma	2	0	7	0	3.50
	Yuvraj Singh	3	0	11	0	3.66

	India innings (target: 216 runs from 44 overs)			R	M	B	4s	6s	SR
		V Kohli	lbw b Kulasekara	31	45	46	3	1	67.39
		G Gambhir	c Sangakkara b Kulasekara	11	37	16	2	0	68.75
		Yuvraj Singh	b Mendis	17	46	23	2	0	73.91
		SK Raina	c Fernando b Kulasekara	10	17	13	2	0	76.92
		RG Sharma	lbw b Kulasekara	3	11	5	0	0	60.00
		MS Dhoni	b Fernando	1	17	7	0	0	14.28
		IK Pathan	c Warnapura b Mendis	7	21	15	1	0	46.66
		Z Khan	lbw b Mendis	3	21	10	0	0	30.00
		RP Singh	c Jayawardene b Fernando	4	14	13	0	0	30.76
		PP Ojha	c Kulasekara b Mendis	5	10	9	1	0	55.55
		MM Patel	not out	4	4	2	1	0	200.00
		Extras	(b 1, lb 2, w 4)	7
		Total	(all out; 26.3 overs; 126 mins)	103	(3.88 runs per over)

	Bowling	O	M	R	W	Econ
	KMDN Kulasekara	9	2	40	4	4.44	(1w)
	T Thushara	6	0	26	0	4.33
	CRD Fernando	7	1	24	2	3.42	(3w)
	BAW Mendis	4.3	2	10	4	2.22

Toss Sri Lanka, who chose to bat first

Series India won the 5-match series 3-2

- About Cricket -

Sandesh Kumar Jaggi

Sri Lanka v India, 5th ODI, Colombo

	Virat Kohli can make use of the opportunity to produce an innings that could cement his place in the side even after the return of Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag

Match facts

Friday, August 29, 2008
Start time 2.30pm (0900 GMT)

Big Picture

Few would have bet on India winning their maiden one-day series in Sri Lanka with a game in hand, especially after they were thrashed twice in a row, first in the Asia Cup final in Pakistan and then in the opening game of this series, with their bogeyman from the Test series, Ajantha Mendis, being the tormentor on both occasions.

The difference lay in the abilities of the two batting orders to adapt. While the Indian batsmen huffed and puffed to victory in the second ODI before adjusting to post defendable totals in Colombo, their Sri Lankan counterparts repeatedly failed to cope with India’s three-pronged pace attack backed up by Harbhajan Singh. The success of India’s bowlers, and Sri Lanka’s collective batting failure, makes the final a dead rubber.

Therefore, there isn’t a lot but proverbial pride to play for on Friday. Sri Lanka have lost two of their last three series at home – against Pakistan and England – and beaten only Bangladesh so they will hope their batsmen fire them to a consolation victory. There is an incentive for some of the Indian batsmen – Virat Kohli, S Badrinath and Rohit Sharma – to produce an innings that will make it harder for them to be overlooked when Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag are available for India’s next limited-overs assignment.

This series, though, has been decided and both teams will be looking forward to a break during the gap created by the absence of the Champions Trophy.

Form guide (last 5 ODIs)

Sri Lanka LLLWW
India WWWLL

Watch out for

The toss: Mahendra Singh Dhoni has won all four tosses in the series. He admitted to misreading the pitch after India lost the first game but made the correct decision in the second in Dambulla. The decision to bat first after the series shifted to the Premadasa has been a no-brainer. The fast bowlers have moved the ball laterally under lights while the spinners have extracted turn and bounce as the match progresses, making chasing a target significantly harder. Murali and Mendis haven’t had the opportunity to defend a score at the Premadasa yet and expect Sri Lanka to stretch India if they do.

Raina and Dhoni v the spinners: India’s two victories at the Premadasa were set up by substantial contributions from Dhoni and Suresh Raina. Both batsmen scored half-centuries in each match to prop up an otherwise frail batting line-up. They approached Murali and Mendis with controlled aggression and did not hesitate in dispatching the bad delivery. Raina scored 31 off 33 balls against Mendis and 35 off 34 against Murali, while Dhoni took 44 off 51 balls and 43 off 45 balls against Mendis and Murali respectively.

Team news

The teams didn’t practise on the eve of the match. Sri Lanka had brought in Malinda Warnapura to open the innings with Sanath Jayasuriya and pushed Kumar Sangakkara down to No. 3 in order to strengthen a top order that was struggling against the new ball. The move failed: Warnapura made an 18-ball duck and Sangakkara fell for 6 but Sri Lanka could give the strategy another go.

Sri Lanka (likely) 1 Sanath Jayasuriya, 2 Malinda Warnapura, 3 Kumar Sangakkara (wk), 4 Mahela Jayawardene (capt), 5 Chamara Kapugedera, 6 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 7 Chaminda Vaas, 8 Nuwan Kulasekara, 9 Thilan Thushara, 10 Ajantha Mendis, 11 Muttiah Muralitharan.

There’s no definite team news from the Indian camp as yet. They are likely to retain the winning combination unless they want to give a chance to Irfan Pathan, RP Singh, Pragyan Ojha and Parthiv Patel.

India (likely) 1 Gautam Gambhir, 2 Virat Kohli, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt & wk), 6 S Badrinath, 7 Rohit Sharma, 8 Praveen Kumar, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Zaheer Khan, 11 Munaf Patel.

Pitch & conditions

In the last two matches, Dhoni had a broad smile on his face as he called correctly and decided to bat. Jayawardene said he would have done the same on a pitch that assists the bowlers as it wears. The weather for Friday isn’t clear: thunderstorms are forecast and the chance of rain is 90%.

- About Cricket -
Sandesh Kumar Jaggi