Sri Lanka Innings
Sri Lanka defeated India by 5 wickets in an exciting last ball victory. They marched into the Semi Finals with two wins under their belt in the Super Eights. India head back home with a third consecutive defeat! Chamara Kapugedera smashed an unbeaten 37 from 16 balls with 2 fours and 3 sixes to clinch the winning runs. SL needed 3 to win from the final ball when he smacked a six over covers. Angelo Mathews (46 from 37 balls with 3 fours and 2 sixes) who got the Man of the Match award put up 56 along with him for the fifth wicket. The Lankan chase was set up well by Dilshan (33 from 26 balls) and Skipper Kumar Sangakkara (46 from 33 balls with 2 fours and 3 sixes).
India Innings
India managed just 163 for 5 against a brilliant Sri Lankan bowling attack. After a nice foundation of 96 for 2 in just over 11 overs, the Indian innings failed to take off towards the end as the Lankan bowlers hit the blockhole on a regular basis. Suresh Raina was the top scorer of the innings with 63 from 47 balls with 7 fours and a six while opener Gautam Gambhir batted well for his 32-ball 41. Skipper MS Dhoni promoted himself to no.3 but could only score an unbeaten 23 from 19 balls.
Thissara Perera with 3-0-15-1 and Lasith Malinga with 4-0-25-2 were the pick of the bowlers for the Lankans. India need to restrict Sri Lanka to less than 143 and hope for West Indies to be beaten by Australia to make it to the Semi Finals. They certainly are short on runs but luckily for India, the pitch is only getting slower and slower to make the big shots difficult to time. Also the outfield is just too dull and not giving any value for the ground shots!
Toss and Teams
India won the toss and elected to bat first in its last Super Eights Match against Sri Lanka at Gros Islet. Both sides have made as many as three changes! For Sri Lanka, this is a must-win game to enter the Semis while India need to beat them by either 20 runs or chase down any target in 17.4 overs to sneak through the backdoor.
Murali Vijay, Ravindra Jadeja and Zaheer Khan have been replaced with Dinesh Karthik, Piyush Chawla and debutant R Vinay Kumar. For Sri Lanka, Thissara Perera, Chinthaka Jayasinghe and Thilan Thushara have replaced Dinesh Chandimal, Ajantha Mendis and Chanaka Welegedera.
India Playing XI : Dinesh Karthik, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni (C&WK), Rohit Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Piyush Chawla, Vinay Kumar and Ashish Nehra
Sri Lanka Playing XI : Mahela Jayawardene, Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumar Sangakkara (C&WK), Tillakaratne Dilshan, Chamara Kapugedera, Chinthaka Jayasinghe, Angelo Mathews, Thissara Perera, Suraj Randiv, Lasith Malinga and Thilan Thushara
