03 November,2023 04:46 AM IST | Mumbai | R Kaushik
India pacer Mohammed Shami celebrates the dismissal of Sri Lanka’s Angelo Matthews at the Wankhede Stadium yesterday. Pics/PTI
This Indian team will take some stopping. If there were any doubts surrounding their all-round strength, those were comprehensively exploded on Thursday night, Sri Lanka at the receiving end of a severe pasting at the Wankhede Stadium.
Before their last game against England, India had won five matches chasing; in Lucknow, they only managed 229 for nine on being put in, significantly below par even on a tricky track. That anomaly was corrected when, despite Rohit Sharma's second-ball dismissal, India piled up 357 for eight on the back of blistering half-centuries from Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli and local lad Shreyas Iyer, desperately in need of a big score as much for his own confidence as for anything else.
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Coming off a seven-wicket pounding at the hands of Afghanistan, Sri Lanka needed a special batting effort to keep their slender semi-final qualification hopes alive, but they were blown away by the three-pronged Indian pace attack. Jasprit Bumrah began the rot by trapping Patham Nissanka in front with the first ball of the chase, then ceded centrestage to Mohammed Siraj and Mohammed Shami (5-18).
The 31,000-plus gathering, among them Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar and Sri Lankan wizard Muttiah Muralitharan, could hardly believe their eyes as India's outstanding quicks went to work under lights, getting the ball to fizz and jag around and climb alarmingly. Sri Lanka, already bowled out by India for 73 (Thiruvananthapuram, January) and 50 (Colombo, September) this year, slumped to four wickets for three runs and 29 for eight before being shot out for 55, India surging to a commanding 302-run win.
Their seventh successive win not just catapulted India back to the top of the table but also sealed their place in the semis.
It's hard to say which of the departments made a stronger statement. Gill and Kohli survived tough chances in the first half-hour when the ball seamed around liberally, left-armer Dilshan Madushanka looking the most threatening of the Sri Lankan quicks. Madushanka, who produced a clever cutter to dislodge Rohit's off-stump, eventually finished with interesting figures of five for 80 and now leads the wicket-taking charts with 17 scalps for the tournament.
Once the surface settled down, Gill and Kohli batted with increasing authority during a second-wicket stand of 189. Both perished to Madushanka with centuries in sight, but Iyer made sure India didn't fritter the platform away with a jaw-dropping assault that netted him 82 off just 56 deliveries, one of which was deposited for a gargantuan 106-metre six. Sri Lanka wilted in the heat, their outcricket going to pieces.
As it turned out, that was just a foretaste of what was to come. Bumrah, Siraj and Shami destroyed them with a fearsome display of fast bowling, Shami's second five-for in three innings the icing on the cake on another night to savour for the home side.
Brief scores
India 357-8 in 50 overs (S Gill 92, V Kohli 88, S Iyer 82, R Jadeja 35; D Madushanka 5-80) beat Sri Lanka 55 all out in 19.4 overs (Kasun Rajitha 14; M Shami 5-18, M Siraj 3-16) by 302 runs
