Kohli’s ton guides India to 6-wicket win against Lanka, completing 5-0 series whitewash
Colombo, Sept. 3: Virat Kohli played a captain’s knock as India thrashed Sri Lanka by six wickets in the fifth and final one-day international Sunday to complete a 5-0 series whitewash.
Kohli remained not out on 110 to help his team achieve the target of 239 runs with 21 balls to spare in the daynight game at R. Premadasa stadium in Colombo.
India swept the preceding Test series 3-0.
After Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s maiden five-wicket haul enabled India to restrict Sri Lanka to 238, Kohli anchored a successful chase, completed in 46.3 overs.
This was his 30th ODI hundred in his only 194th game. He is now joint-second highest in the list of century makers alongside Ricky Ponting with only Sachin Tendulkar (49 hundreds) ahead of him.
Kohli got able support from Kedar Jadhav (63), adding 109 runs with his skipper for the fourth wicket. The stage was set by Kohli and Manish Pandey 36) with a 99-run stand for the third wicket.
Earlier, Bhuvneshwar Kumar grabbed a careerbest 5/42 effecting yet another batting collapse as India skittled out Sri Lanka for 238.
Sri Lankan batting once again promised a lot but delivered too little, losing as many as seven wickets for 53 runs after they were cruising along at 185/3.
A 122-run partnership for the 4th wicket between Lahiru Thirimanne (67) and Angelo Mathews (55) enabled the hosts to reach a position of safety before Bhuvneshwar led the charge.
Jasprit Bumrah (2/45), Kuldeep Yadav (1/40) and Yuzvendra Chahal (1/36) were the other wickettakers.
Upul Tharanga (48) opened the innings with Niroshan Dickwella (2) then, and the latter was dismissed in
the third over offering a simple return catch to Bhuvneshwar. Shardul Thakur (0/48 in 6 overs) was completely off colour on the day though, and he was taken for runs by Tharanga, who hit successive boundaries off him, with the 50 came up off 47 balls. He added 26 runs with Dilshan Munaweera (4) who was dropped to no. 3, but then the hosts were jolted in the space of three overs. Kohli took a brilliant catch at mid-off, going backwards, to dismiss
Munaweera off Bhuvneshwar in the seventh over. Bumrah then had Tharanga caught behind in the 10th over.
It was a familiar story for Sri Lanka as the scoreboard read 64/3 after the first powerplay. Thirimanne and Mathews though defied the Indian bowling for 29.3 overs as they put on the hosts’ highest stand throughout the series.
Their 50-partnership came off 65 balls as Lanka crossed 100 in the 18th over.
14 M.S. DHONI became the first wicket-keeper to effect 100 stumpings in ODIs. THE FORMER Indian skipper achieved this feat by dismissing Akila Dananjaya off Yuzvendra Chahal in the fifth and final match of the series against Sri Lanka. STATS: S. PERVEZ QAISER Number of wickets taken by Jasprit Bumrah in this series. It is the joint highest by a fast bowler in a bilateral ODI series of maximum 5 matches (Andre Adams vs India 2002/03, Clint Mckay vs Pak 2009-10 are the others). SRI LANKA HAVE NEVER SUFFERED A WHITEWASH IN A BILATERAL ODI SERIES OF ANY NUMBER OF MATCHES AT HOME.