Another ODI cliffhanger - this time India & Sri Lanka tie

Sri Lanka 9/ 236  (50 ov, Chandimal 81, Jayawardene 43, Vinay Kumar 3-46, Ashwin 2-30) tied with India 9/236  (50 ov, Gambhir 91, Dhoni 58*, Thisara 2-45); Tri series match 5/12 at Adelaide Oval; Points India 10, Australia 9, Sri Lanka 2.


Two cracking ODIs  in three days! I thought that Sunday's Indian wafer thin victory over Australia would be hard if not impossible to beat, but once again I was wrong as India and Sri Lanka played out a tie.

Sri Lanka lost an early wicket, then regrouped then failed to capitalise. on some moderate Indian bowling.

236 never looked enough but when India lost wickets: the first three batters, including Sachin Tendulkar, each made 15. It was left, as it was on Sunday, to Gautam Gambhir to anchor the innings and M S Dohni to try to finish it. Gambhir succeeded to the tune of 91/106b (6x4) before he was run out by Dhoni, who was a little more positive than on Sunday with 58*/69b (1x6, 3x4) but couldn't hit the boundary required off the last ball  to win. He ran three, levelling the scores and sharing the points. 

Both sides would have been disappointed that they couldn't have scored one more run or, in Sri Lanka's case , taken one more wicket. The match, played in warm but otherwise ideal conditions, was a good advert for ODIs and deserved a bigger attendance than the 5,700 or so who turned up (and made enough noise for a crowd two or three times larger).

Scorecard

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