 Sri Lanka beat India to throw Tri-Series open
12th Feb 2008 15:01 IST
Agencies
The Tri-Series was today thrown wide open as a spirited Sri Lanka recorded their first win in the tournament with an eight-wicket victory over India in a rain-truncated match at the Manuka Oval in Canberra.
Put into bat, India rattled up 195/5 in the allotted 29 overs after play began late due to rain but the islanders overhauled a revised target of 154 in 21 overs with 12 balls to spare.
The Sri Lankans took full advantage of batting second as they chased the revised target without much fuss to keep themselves afloat in the series, riding on contributions from Tillakaratne Dilshan (62 not out) and Sanath Jayasuriya (27 off 13 balls).
Jayasuriya provided a flying start to the Lankan chase as he blasted 27 off 13 balls with two fours and two sixes. The left-hander looked in devastating form and scored 23 in one over from S Sreesanth before being dismissed by Ishant Sharma.
Harbhajan Singh then took Kumar Sangakkara's wicket (10) but that hardly affected the Lankan run-rate as they were taken to victory by Dilshan and his captain Mahela Jayawardene.
Rain came down hard on India as first it intervened to have the game reduced to 29 overs-a-side, which further tilted in Lanka's favour when the target, due to another spell of rain, was readjusted to 154 from 21 overs.
With this win via Duckworth-Lewis method, Sri Lanka managed to keep themselves in the reckoning by taking their points tally to six from three matches.
India continued to maintain their position at the top of the table with eight points from four matches while Australia had seven points from three matches.
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