IND vs SL 2024: Sri Lanka vs India, 2nd ODI – Who Said What?

In the first half of their batting and bowling innings, Sri Lanka again heroically overcame a disadvantage to defeat India by 32 runs at the R. Premadasa Stadium, taking the first game of the three-match series 1-0. The two teams were tied after the first game.

Just as in the first ODI, Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to bat first. Pathum Nissanka was removed for a golden duck after making fifty runs in the previous game. Although Kusal Mendis was fired for forty, the original partnership sought to rebuild. After that, Sri Lanka struggled at 136/6 in the 35th over as the hosts gave way in the middle overs to the spinners.

However, with scores of 39 and 40, respectively, Dunith Wellalage and Kamindu Mendis led a comeback, taking the hosts to 240. The main forces behind the collapse were the spinners, namely Washington Sundar and Kuldeep Yadav, who together took four wickets at a cost of just 63 runs in 20 overs.

Once again, Rohit Sharma gave the hosts a fearsome and swift start as he quickly reached his fifty runs in just 29 deliveries during the powerplay, putting them on the back foot. India’s future looked bright until Jeffrey Vandersay entered the picture and caused unimaginable damage.

Vandersay destroyed the batting order, taking not one, not two, but an incredible six wickets to establish himself as the day’s best bowler. The entire top and middle order fell victim to his extraordinary performance.

Great starts, but Sri Lanka’s batting order collapses once more

None of the Sri Lankan hitters were able to turn their bright beginnings into meaningful contributions, and the innings ended with two scores in the 40s, two in the 30s, and two 10s. One of the main reasons they ended up with a merely adequate total instead of a more commanding number was the series of botched starts that marked the innings.

Kuldeep displays his economical genius once more.

The clever wrist-spinner struck again with a miserly delivery, matching his performance from the opening ODI. Despite giving up exactly the same amount of runs (33), he managed to pick up one more wicket than in the previous game.

Vandersay has a brilliant ODI comeback.

The 34-year-old leg-spinner took control of the match from the minute he came into play in the 12th over, methodically taking apart the strong Indian batting order. On his ODI return after a break since January, the Indian batters were left defenceless against his cunning, unable to read his deliveries.

Also Read: Watch: Rohit Sharma punches Washington Sundar and the humorous video goes viral

He finished with amazing figures of 6/33 for his whole allotment of overs, which was his best ODI performance to date.

Losing skipper, Rohit Sharma

When you lose a game, everything hurts. It’s not just about those 10 overs. You have to play consistent cricket and we failed to do that today. Little disappointed but these things happen. You got to adapt what’s in front of you. With left-right, we felt it’ll be easier to rotate strike. Credit to Jeffrey, he got six wickets. The reason I got 65 is because of the way I batted. When I am batting like that, there’s a lot of risks taken. If you don’t cross the line, you always feel disappointed.

I don’t want to compromise on my intent. We understand nature of this surface, it gets really tough in the middle overs. You have to try to get as many as possible in the powerplay. We weren’t good enough. Don’t want to look too much into how we played. But there’ll be talks about our batting in the middle overs.

Winning skipper, Charith Asalanka

I was pretty with the score. 240 was good enough. As a captain, these kind of problems (plenty of spin options) I need to have. It was an unbelievable spell by him (Vandersay). They were more than 90 runs when he came in to bowl. I am mainly a batter, I have to score runs. After that I can bowl a few overs.

Player of the Match, Jeffrey Vandersay

There was a lot of pressure coming into the side. I am coming out of a layoff. I had to something and it is easier to take credit. I want to give credit to the batters as well. They put on 240 runs and that helped me to bowl in good areas. Hasaranga is out No. 1 spinner. I got to understand the atmosphere of the team and team balance. I have to keep pushing myself. There was assistance in the wicket, I was trying to hit the good areas. Once I got my first wicket, that built up my confidence. Fortunately, I was able to take six wickets.