SK Play of the Day: India affect two run-outs in five overs to break SL's top-order
Watch MS Dhoni’s superb work behind the stumps here.
Outsmarting all predictions and putting to rest the underdog tag that they had been carrying since the inception of the tournament, Sri Lanka, for once, looked to be comfortably chasing down India’s 321 in their second game of the ICC Champions Trophy 2017.
Danushka Gunathilaka and Kusal Mendis helped Sri Lanka recover from the early loss of Niroshan Dickwella and put together a 159-run stand for the second wicket in just 23.1 overs.
India had tried their hands with every mainstream weapon at their disposal, but none of their frontline bowlers had been able to break the partnership that was threatening to take the game away from the defending champions.
As a last throw of the dice, the captain, Virat Kohli, brought on Kedar Jadhav – the man who was immensely successful with the ball, especially when it came to breaking partnerships in the NZ series in October 2016 – to bowl his off-breaks in the 27th over.
His first over just cost four, but couldn’t fetch India the much-needed breakthrough. At the other end, though, India were expected to continue with one of their main bowlers. However, to everybody’s surprise, Kohli brought himself on, in an anticipation that maybe his dibbly-dobbly medium pacers would get India their second wicket.
Kohli bowled a half-tracker on the first ball and was smashed through square leg for four. The decision looked to be a dubious one, then. As it turned out, it wasn’t. On the fifth ball of the 28th over, Gunathilaka worked one towards deep square leg and called Mendis back for the second run, which wasn’t quite on.
Umesh Yadav, who collected the ball in the deep, rocketed the throw back towards Dhoni and the former India captain whipped off the bails in no time even as Gunathilaka put in the dive to make his ground.
The Sri Lankan’s bat was airborne when the bails were dislodged and just like that, and unlikely combination of Dhoni and Kohli – with the ball – was able to give India a much-needed breakthrough.
That wicket did shift the momentum in India’s favour to some extent, as in the next three overs, Jadhav and Kohli didn’t concede many runs and helped build up the pressure.
In the 33rd over, Bhuvneshwar Kumar was brought on, now that the part-time bowlers had done their job, and the pacer produced another moment of brilliance in the field to affect the second run out in the space of five overs.
Kusal Perea nudged a delivery to the leg-side, adjacent to the pitch and took off for a quick single. This run wasn’t there either, as Bhuvneshwar used the momentum of his follow-through and sprinted towards the ball, collected it and hit the middle of the middle stump before Mendis could make his ground at the striker’s end.
In fact, the referral to the third umpire wasn’t needed at all, it looked, as on replay, Mendis was barely in the camera frame when the ball crashed into the stumps. The two run outs removed the two well-set batsmen and brought India right back in the game.