A couple of blazing knocks turned on the heat in the second one-day international between India and Sri Lanka at the R Premadasa Stadium on Saturday night, and the artificial lights cooked up a fascinating contest.

India got off the blocks in a hurry, and ran out of gas in the final stages. Sri Lanka seemed to have measured their chase, but left too much to be done in the end.

With 19 runs needed off the final over, Thilina Kandamby was left marooned at the crease with four balls to spare despite a superlative 93 as the hosts fell to a 15-run defeat at the end of a contest full of umpiring blunders and suicidal dismissals.

Self-inflicted loss

For the loss, Lanka had only themselves to blame though. Despite the experience in the batting order, Sri Lanka took an amateurish approach to chasing down the total of 256 and handed Ishant Sharma the Man of the Match trophy for picking up four wickets. It was more a match that Lanka lost than one that India won. At the end of the day, Sri Lanka were left to count only the moral positives, after skipper Mahela Jayawardene worked his back into form with his 49th ODI half-century to provide a semblance of a spine to the fragile middle-order.

Defending a reasonable total, India got off to fair start as the seamers burst the top-order open. But MS Dhoni would have missed the services of a quality spinner as Jayawardene and Kadamby put together a partnership of 100 runs for the fourth wicket only by rotating the strike and running well between the wickets.

... contd.