SL vs IND Man of the Match: The Sri Lankan opening batsman was awarded with the Man of the Match award for his fifth ODI half-century.
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During the third ODI of the ongoing India’s tour of Sri Lanka in Colombo, Sri Lanka beat India by 3 wickets to register their maiden victory of the series in the last match.
After India captain Shikhar Dhawan won his first toss at the highest level and opted to bat first, India were bundled out for 225 in 43.1 overs. A performance which was unexpected even by the standards of an inexperienced Playing XI, the Indian batsmen surely failed to convert their starts into substantial scores at the R Premdasa Stadium.
With bowling figures of 10-0-44-3, Sri Lanka spinner Akila Dananjaya was the pick of their bowlers. Playing his first match of the series like Dananjaya, spinner Praveen Jayawickrama also picked three wickets in his 10-over spell.
SL vs IND Man of the Match today
Chasing a 227-run target in a 47-over contest, Sri Lanka thrived on the back of a match-winning 109-run partnership for the second wicket between Avishka Fernando and Bhanuka Rajapaksa.
Facing a highly inexperienced Indian bowling attack, Fernando (76) and Rajapaksa (65) didn’t let the opportunity go waste scoring individual half-centuries in the process. Sri Lanka’s progress did get halted due to their dismissals but them doing majority of the work had put their team in a safe space.
Good win for Sri Lanka. Their first in home ODIs against India in 9 years. They were without some key players so this will be a massive moral booster for their youngsters. Avishka Fernando (159 runs at 53.00) has once again showed lot of promise. #SLvInd
— Mazher Arshad (@MazherArshad) July 23, 2021
In what was his second consecutive half-century, Fernando was declared the Man of the Match for contributing in a winning cause tonight. “If we had done well in the second match, we would have won the series. I am very happy for the Player-of-the-Match award today though.
“After the England tour, I worked on my batting and that has helped. We have a very young side and going forward I believe we will do well,” Fernando said during the post-match presentation ceremony.
