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Dilshan stars in Sri Lanka?s victory

President congratulates Lankan cricketers

President Mahinda Rajapaksa congratulated the Sri Lanka cricket team on their convincing eight-wicket win over India in the Tri-Series match in Australia yesterday. He has also commended the man of the match Tillakaratne Dilshan for the explosive innings that enabled Sri Lanka to reach the winning target.

He has wished skipper Mahela Jayawardene all success in the remaining matches and a place in the final.

Tillekeratne Dilshan an unbeaten 63 runs kept Sri Lanka?s hopes flickering in the running of the Commonwealth Bank limited overs series helping Sri Lanka beat India by 8 wickets in a rain effected match at the Menuka Oval here in Canberra yesterday.

Dilshan opened the batting for with Sanath Jayasuriya, with the Lankans who were desperately looking to make an impact in the competition after a no decision against India at Brisbane and a loss against Australia provided the tonic for the team when the pair batted with easy disdain and made the pace attack of S. Sreesanth and Ishant Sharma who rattled the Aussies on Sunday look pretty ordinary.

The match was reduced to a 29 overs per side match due to the rain and India scored 195 for 5 in their allotted 29 overs. With steady drizzle during the lunch interval the victory target was revised to 154 in 21 overs.

The target looked a stiff one, but Jayasuriya and Dilshan batted with assurance and gradually worked their way towards a Sri Lankan victory. Sanath Jayasuriya gave a fairy tale start to the Lankans innings hammering Sreesanth for 11 runs in the first over.


Dilshan diving successfully to stop a boundary.

The aggressive Sanath despatched a Sreesanth for a 6 huge six over mid wicket into the crowd and his 1.5 overs at this stage cost 31 runs.

The match resembled a Twenty/20 game. Jayasuriya utilised only 13 deliveries for his 27 which contained another six over cover point and two fours.

It was Dilshan who really gave a twist to the innings. Opening the innings is certainly not a strange one for Dilshan. He has opened the batting in domestic tournaments and looks more suitable as an opener with his attacking instinct.

After losing Jayasuriya and Sangakkara in succession with the total at 69 in the, ninth over skipper Mahela joined by Dilshan and added 85 runs for the third wicket. Mahela?s contribution being an unbeaten 34. Dilshan had faced 59 deliveries and had six fours and a six.

Earlier in the Indian innings Rohith Sharma continued his good work with his bat to put India in front as India were sent into bat in a match reduced by rain to 29 overs when he was engaged in two valuable partnerships first with Gautham Gambhir adding 64 for the third wicket and another 68 run stand for the fourth wicket between Sharma and Dhoni. India got off to quite start. Tendulkar and Sehwag took 12 balls to score a run. Normally attacking Sehwag was surprisingly quite as both batsmen were beaten by Vass, and Malinga.

In the first five overs India managed only 21 runs. But Tendulkar and Sehwag got their act together. Tendulkar in particular got into his stride and played some brilliant leg side strokes. The openers put on 45 runs for the first wicket and Kulasekera replacing Malinga got the wicket of Sehwag caught by Muralitharan at deep third man.

Tendulkar after making 32 off 30 deliveries was out in a similar fashion caught by Kulasekera with a good running catch.

After the dismissal of Tendulkar the scoring rate for India dropped back a bit. The Sri Lankan bowlers did a good job restrict high scoring batsmen. Dhoni promoting himself in the batting order joined Rohith Sharma and increased the tempo striking 31 off 26 deliveries with three fours. Rohith Sharma?s unbeaten 70 contained six fours and a six off 64 deliveries.

Mahela Jayawardena at the press briefing after the match said if the Lankans are to win they had to show character, and the team did so and that was the key for the win.

The Team fought really well, and winning the toss was a bit of an advantage on that wicket because earlier on the first few overs our bowlers bowled well, and it was a really good one day track.

They batted really well and we managed to keep them to a decent score, and the chase was brilliant and well calculated and credit should go to the guys the way they handled themselves today? said the Lankan captain.

Both Jayawardena and Dhoni the respective captains said that it was great to play a limited over series in Australia.

They said that it is really amazing playing in front of a big crowd and an open tournament. Even if you have few bad games you can always come back and perform well.

Dhoni was full of praise of Dilshan?s and Sanath?s innings and said that it resembled a Twenty/20 tournament with the field restrictions.

SCOREBOARD

INDIA INNINGS
 
V. Sehwag c Muralitharan b Kulasekara	14
S. Tendulkar cKulasekara b Maharoof	32
G. Gambhir run out			35
R. Sharma not out			70
M.S. Dhoni run out			31
Y. Singh c Muralitharan b Malinga	 6
R. Uthappa not out			 0
Extras (1lb, 6w)			 7
TOTAL (for five wickets)		195
FALL: 45 (Sehwag), 49 (Tendulkar), 113 (Gambhir), 
181 (Dhoni), 192 (Y. Singh) 
BOWLING: Vaas 6-1-39-0, Malinga 6-0-45-1, Maharoof 6-0-33-1,
 Kulasekara 6-0-41-1, Muralitharan 5-0-36-0 (6w) 
Overs: 29 

   SRI LANKA INNINGS 

T. Dilshan not out			62
S. Jayasuriya c Dhoni b Sharma		27
K. Sangakkara c Sharma b Harbhajan	10
M. Jayawardene not out			36
Extras (6lb, 10w, 3nb)			19
TOTAL (for two wickets)			154
FALL: 45 (Jayasuriya), 69 (Sangakkara)
BOWLING: Sreesanth 3-0-48-0 (1nb, 2w), Sharma 4-0-26-1 (2nb), 
Pathan 4-0-30-0 (1w), Harbhajan 4-0-15-1, Tendulkar 2-0-15-0 (3w), 
Sehwag 2-0-14-0  Overs: 19 
Sri Lanka set 154 from 21 overs to win under Duckworth-Lewis method 
Sri Lanka win by eight wickets 
Points: Sri Lanka 4, India 0 
Man of match: T. Dilshan (SRI) 
Toss: Sri Lanka 
Umpires: Tony Hill (NZL), Bruce Oxenford (AUS) 
TV umpire: Peter Parker (AUS) 
Match referee: Jeff Crowe (NZL) 

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