News Karnataka
Thursday, March 28 2024
Cricket
Sports

India set stiff target for Lanka, soon have them reeling

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Colombo: India set a target of 386 for Sri Lanka to chase on the fifth day of a rain truncated test  match (the highest they have chased in the fourth innings is 352), after the lower order starting with Rohit Sharma and ending with Binny chipped in with brief cameos to take iIdnai to a respectable total.
Ishant Sharma, having faced a barrage of bouncers from Dhammika Prasad and aggression from Dinesh Chandimal when he batted, came out pumped up and knocked out any thoughts of the target of 386 being chased down with two wickets in his first spell, including that of Chandimal, who had made slight physical contact with Ishant in India’s innings.

With a lead of 380 in the bag, against this Sri Lankan batting, and with rain always a factor, India would have been expected to declare early in the final session of the day. Still Ishant came out at No. 11, and was bounced and stared at. Except that one of those bouncers was a big no-ball. Ishant didn’t like it, and when taking a single pointed to his helmet, as if to tell Prasad to aim at his head if he means to hurt him. Chandimal made himself a party to the altercation, and seemed to brush Ishant while doing so.

R Ashwin, who had batted as stylishly as Rohit but under considerably less pressure, tried to shield Ishant and opened the face to the last ball of the said over, but only managed an edge to end the innings. Ishant ran off to prepare to bowl in 10 minutes’ time, but Prasad left his team behind and chased him and caught up with him at the end of the players’ tunnel at SSC. The duo had to be separated.

Yet again Ishant produced Upul Tharanga’s edge in the first over, taken this time of course, to keep to 71 the total runs scored by the first wicket on either side in 12 opportunities. Ishant and Kohli were now in the face of the dismissed batsman, but Yadav was less angry when he got an edge out of Dimuth Karunaratne soon.

Ishant’s anger boiled over when he got the counterattacking Chandimal to open the face to play a short ball to third slip, where KL Rahul dropped yet another catch only for Kohli to take the rebound. Ishant repeatedly banged his head without getting close to Chandimal. This was a better way to send the message across.

Scores

Sri Lanka 201 and 67 for 3 (Ishant 2-14) need another 319 to beat India 312 and 274 (Ashwin 58, Rohit 50, Pradeep 4-62, Prasad 4-69)

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