India prized out a hard-fought 46-run victory in the fourth one-day match against Sri Lanka to take an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five match series and register their first ever series win over the hosts in a bilateral series played out in the Island nation.
Set to score 259 runs for a series leveling victory, the hosts could manage only 212 runs as the Indian bowlers kept taking wickets at regular intervals. Though the Lankans were theoretically never out of the game, loss of wickets at regular intervals hampered their run-chase.
The Indian bowlers began well as Munaf Patel remove opener Malinda Warnapura and Kumara Sangakkara in quick succession though Sanath Jayasuriya kept the momentum going with a quick fire half century. However, with Jayasuriya’s dismissal, things turned in India’s favour conclusively.
Though the top and middle order did not fire for the hosts, batsmen lower down showed much better pluck than their Indian counterparts with the last five players adding 70-plus runs between them. Thushara has been quite a revelation for the Lankans as he once again thwarted the Indian bowlers with great courage.
India has won two series in Sri Lanka since they played each other for the first time in the Island nation way back in 1985. However, both these wins came in multi-team competitions. India won in 1994 and 1998, the other teams being Pakistan and Australia and New Zealand respectively. India and Sri Lanka shared the Champions Trophy in the 2002-03 season.
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