Sri Lanka maintain winning form

Thilan Samaraweera scored a magnificent century and helped Sri Lanka to a victory over India in the second match at Dhaka.

Sri Lanka beat India by five wickets in the second match of the triangular series and are comfortably on top of the table after yesterday’s win over Bangladesh in the opener.

Sri Lanka won the toss and once again decided to bowl first, worried about the dew coming down under lights. India got off to a quick start with 76 on the board in the first ten overs but on the other hand lost three crucial wickets of Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli and Virender Sehwag which was a huge setback. Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni steadied the ship with a 99 run partnership for the fourth wicket and gave India a good platform to fire. Suresh Raina and Ravindra Jadeja kept up the good work later on in the Extreme Performance overs with a 65 run stand off just 47 balls that helped India get to a total of 279, which was competitive but not comfortable.

Sri Lanka started confidently in their run chase and scored at a good rate to reach 61 in the Quick start period, losing just one wicket of Lahiru Thirimanne. They lost Upul Tharanga soon after but that was followed  by a 120 run partnership between Kumar Sangakkara and Thilan Samaraweera and the Lankans seemed to be racing away with the match at that stage. India finally broke through around the 35th over and picked up another couple of wickets in succession from that point which put things on an even keel as reflected on the Castrol Index. But Samaraweera kept his cool through the Batting Power Play and played some expansive shots towards the end with help from Thisara Perera, who played a crucial supporting role and helped Sri Lanka get home.

Thilan Samaraweera was adjudged Man of the Match for his unbeaten 105 off 106 balls with a Batting Momentum of 146.