Asia Cup Cricket: Dhoni’s men Crush Lankan Tigers to become Asian Champions
Indian seam bowlers played a pivotal role in the success of their team in the Asia Cup final against Sri Lanka. With the victory, the pressure is off MS Dhoni and his bowlers as they win for the fourth time in their last seven finals. The Indian seam attack made considerable improvements coming into this match. And with conditions of Dambulla supporting movement of ball, it is not surprising to see Sri Lankan batsmen struggling against trio of Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Praveen Kumar.
Indian fast bowlers were instrumental in restricting the hosts as they enjoyed bowling on a track that offered movement, bounce and consequently wickets. Sri Lanka coming into this match with an earlier win over India was looking bit over-confident and didn’t attack as they have done in their earlier contest. And with the absence of performances such as Mahroof’s hat-trick in their last match, it was evident that Dhoni’s men were there to dominate the proceedings.
India started the innings in a shaky manner as Gautam Gambhir failed to capitalize on a decent start as he was poorly run out. Sri Lanka, who fielded brilliantly in the last match failed miserably as they dropped a number of catches early in the innings. Capitalizing on the hosts’ incompetence in the field, Karthik seized the initiative for India as he accelerated the score for India. With the dismissal of Dhoni in the 33rd over, India was 167-4. Instead of attacking the Indians, Sangakkara kept on using his part timers which cost the Tigers heavily as new Indian batsmen, in-form Raina and Rohit Sharma steered India to a respectable total. After 50 overs, India scored 268 for 6 with Karthik as top scorer with 66.
In response, Sri Lanka started disastrously as they lost most of their top order in the first 15-overs. Indian seam bowlers did the most damage as trio of Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Praveen Kumar took collectively 5 wickets. Kumar struck for India in opening over as he removed danger man Dilshan. After the dismissal of Dilshan, Sangakkara and Tharanga found it difficult to cope with onslaughts of Kumar and Zaheer khan.
Zaheer’s in-swinger hit the top of the stumps as Tharanga failed to judge the bounce and movement and left the delivery. Nehra was introduced in the attack by Dhoni and he responded by removing Mathews in the 14th over leaving Sri Lanka 49 for 3. He then struck again in 16th over when he removed skipper Sangakkara. But his best deliveries came against Chamara Kapugedera, who failed repeatedly to read Nehra’s balls. Kapugedera and Kulasekara provided some respite to hosts in form of a good partnership but they could not save the former Asian Champions as Sri Lanka crumbled to 187 awarding Indians victory by a margin of 81 runs. Kapugedera was top scorer for Sri Lankans with unbeaten 55.
This was a repeat of the final two years ago. The totals and victory margin are almost the same but the winner is different. Indian bowlers were responsible for turning the match but Karthik was awarded man of the match for his solid batting performance.
Dhoni looked satisfied as they had had a great campaign with only one loss. Talking at the post match ceremony, he said, “This was a very satisfying win for us since we won three out of four games. It was an important tournament, four of the best sides were playing, and each side was quite balanced, overall happy with the performance”. Commenting on his decision to bat first, he said, “The guys were pumped-up to perform. It was a good toss to win, conditions were ideal for batting. It got a bit slower as the game progressed and it started doing a bit under the lights, the fast bowlers made the most out of it”.
India will be leaving Sri Lanka after being crowned as new Asian Champions. For Sri Lanka, it was utter disappointment as they not only failed to defend their title but also lost in front of their home crowd.
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