Sensational Kohli turns Srilanka roly-poly

Virat Kohli not only steered India past Srilanka in a must-win game but he battered the Lankan bowlers in the worst possible manner. This was unarguably Kohli’s finest ODI innings of his career and there are definitely much more to come. A youngster of this
class deserves to be applauded all the way through as it was not only team India’s victory but it was Kohli’s victory.

The middle-order batsman has been struggling in the previous games with 20’s and 30’s to his name but he showed his true class against Srilanka who were fresh from three successive wins, including two on the trot over the home side, Australia.

In order to stay alive in the competition, India needed to win inside the 40 overs to ensure for themselves a bonus point and get level on terms with second placed, Srilanka. They made one change to their side which lost to Australia on Sunday at the Sydney
Cricket Ground. Irfan Pathan was left out due to injury and was replaced by Zaheer Khan. Srilanka made no changes to their starting XI which defeated Australia in their last game.

Losing the toss and batting first, the 2011 World Cup runners-up to India, smoked their way to 320/4 in their allotted 50 overs. Tillkaratne Dilshan scored 160 not out while Kumar Sangakkara made 105. Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar and Ravindra Jadeja picked
up a wicket each. However, the three fast bowler proved to be expensive with Khan, the most economical of the three with the economy rate of 6.77 from his nine overs.

India started their innings with a bonus point on their mind and got off to a flying start courtesy of Virendar Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar. Sehwag made 30 from 16 balls before lofting a catch to Dilsan at mid-on. Tendulkar was LBW for 39 announcing the
arrival of Kohli. The youngster just ripped everyone apart with his scintillating display and finished not out with 133 runs of 86 balls which included 16 fours and two sixes. He played out of his skins to help his country extend their stay in Australia until
Friday when Srilanka will take on the home side for the last time in the league stages.

Australia have already advanced into the finals of the tri-series and still await their opponents in the best-of-three final. If Srilanka will be able to beat Australia than it will be Lanka-Australia final else India will advance only if Australia beat
Srilanka with the bonus point.

Lasith Malinga proved the most expensive of all the bowlers in the game with an economy of 12.52 in less than eight overs. The fast bowler delivered 7.4 overs for 96 runs at the expense of Sachin’s wicket. Kulasekara conceded 71 in his eight overs while
Perera gave away 59 in seven.

Srilanka will take on Australia with their last chance to make it into the finals on Friday, March 02.

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Posted by Taha Habib on Feb 28 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry