Suresh Raina credits Gautam Gambhir for victory over Sri Lanka

Suresh Raina’s quick half-century played an important role in India’s close win over Sri Lanka in the third One Day International, but the aggressive left-hander did not take anything thing away from Gautam Gambhir, and said that the Delhi opener laid a
solid foundation by scoring a magnificent ton.

Batting first, the home side posted a decent total of 286 on the board, courtesy of brilliant batting by Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene. Angelo Mathews batted well in the final overs, scoring 71 runs off 57 balls.

In reply, India lost Virender Sehwag in the second over, but Gambhir was there to take responsibility on his shoulders. The left-handed batsman clattered 102 runs before running himself out in the 39^th over.

After his departure, Raina did the trick for his side, and scored crucial 65 runs to take his side to a nail-biting success. Talking about Gambhir’s outstanding batting at the top order, Raina stated:

"I learnt over the years, how to bat when you need eight an over, Gautam played very well early on to set the platform. I looked to play straight, not to play cross, I knew I could hit over cover, over midwicket, I also wanted to run hard. Credit goes to
Gautam, he batted very well."

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India’s captain, lavished praise on Raina and Gambhir, saying that he has full faith in his team’s ability to win. Dhoni said at the post-match presentation ceremony:

"We had a chance, because Gautam was still batting, and we all had belief in Raina, we also had Irfan and Ashwin. I think those two wickets changed the game, Gautam did really well and we needed one of the top three to put in a performance like this."

Dhoni was delighted over his side’s performance, but admitted that the guys need to improve their bowling in the death overs. The islanders scored over-100 runs in the final 12 overs.

"We need to improve our death bowling, and our fielding, but overall I was happy with our performance," said the wicket-keeper batsman, who added 31 runs to the total.

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Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on Jul 30 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry