Indians win despite Sanath’s heroics

Chris DHAMBARAGE - reporting from Dambulla

India drew first blood defeating Sri Lanka by six wickets despite Sanath Jayasuriya’s batting heroics in the opening one day international of the five match series worked off at the Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium yesterday.

Veteran Jayasuriya hammered a magnificent 107 to help Sri Lanka pile up a competitive 246 for 7 after been put into bat in this day encounter. However the Indians cruised to their target in a professional manner while reaching 247 for 4 in the 49th over.

The Indians gave a fine lesson to their opponents in chasing a target of this nature after they had lost veteran Sachin Tendulkar in the fourth over of the innings. But apart from this setback India were always in control of the situation as they concentrated in building up partnerships with a minimum effort.

In fact the best contributions came from the pair of Gautham Ghambhir and Suresh Raina who were associated in a second wicket stand of 113 runs. Both collected their runs at a steady pace without taking a great amount of risk against the Sri Lankan spinners.

Muttiah Muralitharan of course looked impressive at the beginning while capturing his 501st wicket while chasing Wasim Akram’s World record tally of 502 wickets. But the Indian batsmen soon got used to the conditions and began to play the spinners more convincingly.

Ghambhir became Muralitharan’s only victim for a top score of 62 and Suresh Raina was run out for 54 following a terrible mix up with his partner. However Yuvraj Singh and skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni consolidated their position with a 44 run partnership for the fourth wicket.

Rohith Sharma joined his captain and the pair took the side through safely with an unfinished fifth wicket stand of 66 runs. Skipper Dhoni remained unbeaten on 61 with four boundaries and Sharma on 25 with three boundaries.

Earlier dashing opener Sanath Jayasuriya played a typical one day innings while collecting his runs from 114 deliveries inclusive of one six and ten boundaries. His knock of 107 had a great amount of significance as he became the oldest player to score a one day international century.

The left hander performed this feat at the age of 39 years and 212 days while surpassing the previous record held by former England captain Geff Boycott who made 105 against Australia at Sydney in 1979 at the age of 39 years and 51 days.

Man of the match Jayasuriya also became only the second player to complete 13,000 runs and reached his 28th century while playing in his 428th one day international. Only Sachin Tendulkar is ahead of him with a tally of 16,422 runs from 419 matches.

In addition this was also the highest individual score at Dambulla while surpassing the previous best of 104 scored by former Indian captain Rahul Dravid against the United Arab Emirates team in 2004.

Jayasuriya of course had an awful start to the game and was probably responsible for the dismissal of his opening partner Tillekeratne Dilshan who was run out by Pathan in the third delivery of the innings. This early setback certainly made Jayasuriya more determined as he began to repair the early damage in a somewhat cautious manner.

Jayasuriya picked the loose deliveries quite intelligently and set about his task after reaching his half century from 65 deliveries with the help of seven boundaries. But he soon realized the teams need to accelerate the scoring rate and raced to his second fifty from just 49 deliveries.

He eventually paid the penalty in the 40th over while trying to hoist seamer Zaheer Khan after having compiled only the second century at the Ragiri Dambulla International Stadium. Jayasuriya and Kumar Sangakkara put on 118 runs for the second wicket in 28 overs.

The two teams will now head to Colombo for the second match of the series a day night contest on Saturday at the R. Premadasa Stadium.

SRI LANKA

T. Dilshan run out			 0
S. Jayasuriya c Patel b Zaheer 		107
K. Sangakkara c Raina b Ojha 		44
T. Kandamby c Zaheer b I. Sharma 	17
F. Maharoof b I. Sharma 		35
M. Jayawardene c R. Sharma b I. Sharma 	11
C. Kapugedera run out 			15
T. Thushara not out 			12
N. Kulasekara not out 			 0
EXTRAS (NB-2, W-3) 			 5
TOTAL (for seven wickets) 		246
FALL OF WICKETS: 1-0 (Dilshan), 2-118 (Sangakkara), 3-169 (Kandamby), 4-171 (Jayasuriya), 
5-204 (Jayawardene), 6-222 (Maharoof), 7-245 (Kapugedera).
BOWLING: Zaheer 10-2-40-1 (w1), Patel 5-0-32-0 (w2), I. Sharma 10-1-52-3 (nb2), 
Ojha 10-0-52-1, Yusuf Pathan 7-0-32-0, Raina 4-0-16-0, R. Sharma 4-1-22-0.

INDIA

G. Gambhir c Kandamby b Muralitharan 	62
S. Tendulkar lbw b Thushara 		 5
S. Raina run out 			54
Y. Singh c Muralitharan b Maharoof 	23
MS Dhoni not out 			61
R. Sharma not out 			25
EXTRAS (LB-8, NB-1, W-8) 		17
TOTAL (for four wickets) 		247
FALL OF WICKETS: 1-13 (Tendulkar), 2-126 (Gambhir), 3-137 (Raina), 4-181 (Y. Singh). 
BOWLING: Kulasekara 7-0-32-0 (w1), Thushara 8-0-44-1 (w4), Maharoof 8-0-35-1, 
Mendis 10-0-47-0 (nb1, w1), Muralitharan 10-0-52-1 (w1), Dilshan 5.1-0-29-0.