Virat Kohli & Co. once again smashed the Sri Lankan cricket team by 168 runs in the 4th One Day International played on August 31 at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. The home team terribly failed to chase down a tough target of 376 runs and collapsed within 207 runs with 45 balls to spare. With this victory, Team India is now leading the series by 4-0 with one more game to be played on August 31 in Colombo. On the other hand, this is the biggest defeat for Sri Lanka in terms of runs at their home.
Once again the home team looked struggling in front of the Indian bowling line up. Despite a good start, the Lankan had an early wicket loss after Niroshan Dickwella was caught by MS Dhoni behind the stumps in a delivery by debutant Shardul Thakur. India had the first breakthrough in the 3rd over itself while the home team still a huge target to chase.
The next three batsmen, Dilshan Manuweera (11), Kusal Mendis (1), Lahiru Thirimane (18) couldn’t sustain the pressure and were dismissed very early. Former captain Angelo Mathews held the nerve for a while but he also couldn’t take until the end. Though he knocked a half-century, however, he was dismissed for 70 off 80 balls by Shardul Thakur in the 38th over.
Towards the Milinds Siriwardana (39) and Wanidu Hasaranga (22) tried hard to balance the inning but by then it was too late. The tail enders including Malinda Pushpakumara (3), Vishwa Fernando (5) and the stand in skipper Lasith Malinga (0) couldn’t do anything special to withstand till the end and lost the game in the 43rd over.
Earlier today, India won the toss and elected to bat first. For the first time in this on going ODI series, Virat Kohli elected to bat first after winning the toss. Team India had an early blow as opener Shikhar Dhawan went back to pavilion very early after scoring a mere 4 runs. When the team was reduced to 7/1, Virat Kohli came on the field and started punishing the bowlers right from the beginning. He hit 3 consecutive fours to Vishwa Fernando in the 4th over and kept on smashing the bowlers.
Kohli ended up scoring 131 runs off 96 balls before he was dismissed by Lasith Malinga which was his 300th wicket in One Day Internationals. Later, Rohit Sharma also knocked the 13th century of his career while Manish Pandey hit a half-century which was his 2nd in ODIs.
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