Sri Lanka miss out another loss to India

At times, even a loss for a team that has been winning frequently is welcome, like it happened for India who lost the 2^nd match to Sri Lanka after having won on 8 of the previous 10 occasions in this year alone to Sri Lanka. However, though India lost the match, India were no less when it came in displaying their caliber. Sri Lanka needs atleast 10 more such victories which may then start to haunt India the next time they face Sri Lanka. This was no one sided game unlike the ones that were played earlier between the two countries.

The last time Sri Lanka came close to winning the match against India was in the first one day international at Rajkot where despite scoring a mammoth 414 runs on the board, Sri Lanka threatened to do a South Africa when they fell just 4 runs short of crossing the target. And, in the remaining two ODIs which India won, India completely swept the Sri Lankans. The target of 240 that the Sri Lankan batsmen imposed upon the Indians were as though they were having a match practice when they did it with almost 8 overs to spare at Cuttack.

So was the case in the 4^th one dayer played at Kolkata. The total in excess of 300 put up by the Sri Lankan batsmen proved in no way to trouble the Indian batsmen. And, it was no Sachin Tendulkar or Virender Sehwag who posed problems for Sri Lanka but a new comer in Virat Kohli who scored 107 runs which was also his maiden century in one day cricket. This was rather a welcome victory for the Sri Lankans though the same need not be guaranteed in their next encounter with Indians in Dhaka 5 days later. Sri Lanka can hope to be fortunate to have missed another loss to India.

Coming to the match, there was a batsman from Sri Lanka who scored a hundred and a bowler who had a 5 wicket haul. But, one thing that needs to be understood time and again is that efforts of batsmen are given more consideration than either bowlers or fielders whatsoever. That was a batting track where scalping 5 batsmen from one of the strongest sides of the world definitely needs a lot of applause. But, eventually, it would be Samaraweera who walks away with the man of the match award for his unbeaten 105. 3 of his five wickets contained top three batsmen.