Hambantota: India survived some jittery moments in the fag end before snatching a thrilling 21-run win over Sri Lanka in the first cricket one-dayer of the five-match series, here on Saturday.
Man-of-the-Match Virat Kohli cracked a superb 106 and Virender Sehwag scored 96 runs as their 173-run stand for the second wicket laid the foundation for India’s imposing 314/6 after electing to bat.
Diminutive left-hander Suresh Raina (50 off 45) and skipper MS Dhoni (35 off 29) added valuable runs towards the end to take the side past 300-run mark.
India then restricted the hosts to 293/9 to take a 1-0 lead in the series; India are looking for a 5-0 margin to reclaim the number one position in ODIs.
The hosts’ resistance was built around Sangakkara’s fighting 133, but he lacked support until Thisara Perera, who scored a quick-fire 44 off just 28 balls, came to the crease.
Sangakkara’s knock, his 14th ODI hundred and fifth against India, came off 151 balls and included 12 boundaries.
The hosts’ fight ended when Sangakkara was bowled by Umesh Yadav in the 48th over and Perera was dismissed by Irfan Pathan in the penultimate over.
Kohli carried his good form of the last season into the match as he scored his fourth hundred in his last five innings. He blasted nine boundaries in his 113-ball innings.
Sehwag, who was given a reprieve by Tillakaratne Dilshan in the second over, had 10 boundaries in his 97-ball innings.
Both teams will now travel to Colombo for the second match, scheduled for Tuesday.
Sri Lanka made a shaky start to the chase as they lost Dilshan (6) in the second over, trapped by Pathan with his second ball.
Sangakkara and Upul Tharanga (28) somehow redeemed the innings with a 77-run stand but India never let the duo bat freely, resulting in mounting the required run-rate.
The two players had to work hard for runs as the wicket was two-paced and the outfield, too, was very slow. They managed to take Sri Lanka to 68 for one in 15 overs as the pace trio of Zaheer Khan, Pathan and Yadav kept things tight.
Spinner Ashwin started troubling the batsmen right from the word go and soon broke the second wicket stand by having Tharanga caught in the slip cordon.
Dinesh Chandimal (13) departed without contributing much, leaving Sangakkara and Mahela Jaywardene to score at an asking rate of eight runs in the remaining 21 overs.
The last thing, Sri Lanka needed at that stage was losing another wicket but left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha struck a deadly blow to the host by trapping skipper Jayawardene lbw for 12 runs.
Sangakkara cut loose, smashing Zaheer Khan and Ashwin for boundaries to move quickly into 80s.
Sri Lanka required 144 runs from the last 15 overs and the pressure of scoring almost 10 runs per over got to Angelo Mathews, whose half-hearted strike ended in the hands of Gautam Gambhir (7) in the cover region.
Sangakkara kept going strong from the other end and completed his century with a single off Ashwin in the last ball of the 39th over.
Perera hit a mighty 98-metre hit off Ojha and Sangakkara too started finding quick boundaries, turning the heat on India and making it a closely-fought contest.
Rahul Sharma misses out
India chose not to field off-spinner Rahul Sharma, who, Mumbai police said late on Friday, had tested positive for drugs during a rave party back in May.
South African fast bowler Wayne Parnell also tested positive.
The BCCI said that it will study the police report before taking any action against the Indian bowler.
“The BCCI will first procure each and every bit of relevant information and then study them before deciding on the course of action,” IPL chairman Rajiv Shukla said.