On Wednesday, Sri Lanka won the third ODI against India by 110 runs in a historic match at R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo. This was after 27 years that Sri Lanka had last won a bilateral ODI series against India.
The Indian batting line-up could not handle the Sri Lankan spinners during the three-match ODI series and they lost a record number of 27 wickets to spin across the three matches, which is more than any team has ever lost in a bilateral ODI series (with a maximum of three matches).
Sri Lanka’s openers laid down good foundations for batting first after winning the toss. While Pathum Nissanka made 45 runs, Avishka Fernando scored 96 off 102 balls to hold up innings.
With Kusal Mendis scoring 59 runs with Fernando, Sri Lanka managed to totalize at 248/7. Despite missing his century, Fernando bagged the “Man of the Match” award thanks to his knock. Riyan Parag was the pick amongst Indian bowlers as he took three wickets for only fifty-four runs.
India could not put up much resistance in their chase early on except skipper Rohit Sharma who made thirty-five runs quickly. However, Wellalage one led an attack from a point where it completely disintegrated all of India’s batsmen in spin-friendly wicket conditions.
Wellalage scalped five wickets in just over five overs including that of Sharma while Maheesh Theekshana dismissed Washington Sundar for thirty thereby ending hopes for India in twenty six overs.
The final blow came when Wellalage got Kuldeep Yadav out dismissing fourth wicket and leaving them at paltry run rate of just over two and half per over. Sri Lanka’s commanding spin bowling together with Theekshana, Wellalage and Jeffrey Vandersay contributed enormously to make sure this series ended memorably with the win, which was not achieved since 1997.
