Published: Aug 08, 2024, 08:11 PM (IST)
Edited: Aug 09, 2024, 10:00 AM (IST)
The Indian cricket team was seen having a historic downfall on August 27 as they lost the third ODI against Sri Lanka by a massive margin of 110 runs. This, as a result, led Sri Lanka to lead the series by 2-0. And defeating India in a bilateral series created historic record, as Sri Lanka won an ODI against India after 27 years.
For the third ever time in history, Sri Lankan team has won an ODI series against India, with the last victory coming in at August 1977. Before this defeat, Indian team was at a 11 consecutive ODI-winning streak against Sri Lanka.
For the record, the First ODI of the series ended in a tie where not even a super over was played. Then in the second match, the hosts beat India by 32 runs and then completely thrashed them in the third.
A common pattern in all the three ODIs was that Sri Lanka won the toss and, even after having tricky pitch, put big amount on scoreboard. Apart from Rohit Sharma’s batting, rest of the batters struggled as Sri Lankan bowlers bagged wicket after wicket.
Sri Lankan star Maheesh Theekshana seemed to take a flying statement at the Indian team as he claimed they struggled in the three games in Colombo because they are used to playing on smaller boundaries.
“They usually play on good wickets and small boundaries in India. We knew playing in Premadasa, if there’s little bit turn, we can take advantage because we have good spinners,” he said.
It was leg spinner Jeffery Vandersey who bagged six wickets from India in the second game, and it was Dunith Wellalage in the third game who bagged five wickets in running through Team India.
“Rohit came into bat and he attacked me, Asitha got a good start, came back and got Shubhman, and then Wellalage was brilliant, Vandersay did a great job. Akila bowled economically in both the games. I wanted to bowl more dot balls. It was a team effort. All the players contributed, that’s why we ended up winning 2-0,” Theekshana said.
Though Sri Lanka has a 3-match Test series against England on the watch, the Indian team have a break for 43 days and will now be in action in September for a 2-match test series against Bangladesh.
