Gambhir failed to carry his form from the Test series and failed for the fourth straight outing. Rohit Sharma flopped once again, while Suresh Raina’s over-confident pull shot to a delivery that wasn’t short enough went straight up in the air. Once the rain came down at 70/3 in 14.2 overs, India’s hopes of pulling off a victory looked even bleaker.

Lankan stutter

Earlier, even the hosts didn’t get much right with their batting after Mahela Jayawardene won his first toss of the series and elected to bat first on a slow wicket.

Sanath Jayasuriya departed early after top-edging Zaheer to the third-man region. Then, Warnapura and Udawatte crawled through the first power-play to see off the disciplined new-ball attack of Munaf Patel and Zaheer. The two Lankan batsmen added 77 runs in their 75-minute association for the second-wicket before Pathan struck twice in four balls to send them both back to the pavilion.

Jayawardene and Kapugedera, who benefited from the third umpire’s decision on a caught-and-bowled chance against Ojha, went back to soft dismissals trying to target the cover area against the left-arm spinner. Ojha returned with outstanding figures of 10-4-28-2 on his comeback outing.

Strong finish

Thilan Thushara came to Sri Lanka’s rescue for the fourth time in four matches — his maiden half-century providing the hosts with stability in the middle overs to take Sri Lanka to what turned out to be a match-winning 227.

... contd.