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India Overcome Wellalage's Spirited All-Round Show To Seal Asia Cup Final Spot

image-lmglqrduWellalage congratulated by Indian players for his all-round show in defeat (AP)

Team India overpowered Asia Cup 2023 co-hosts Sri Lanka in a tense spin battle at Colombo’s R. Premadasa Stadium.

Wellalage, Asalanka undo Rohit Sharma’s blitzkrieg

Indian openers Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill launched their side off to a blazing start for the third time in succession this Asia Cup 2023. The two cricketers shared 80 runs together, before Gill became the first of young Sri Lankan spinner Dunith Wellalage’s five victims of the day.

Sharma cracked a sparkling half-century, his 51st in ODIs and shattered several batting records in doing so. Apart from completing 10,000 runs in the format, he also breached the 8,000-run mark as an opener alone, becoming the second fastest and fastest to do so respectively.

After splendid Sharma show, young Wellalage triggered a colossal batting collapse as he accounted for five of India’s top six batters. Apart from the two openers, the 20-year-old enigma machine also dismissed Virat Kohli, KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya to reduce the ‘Men in Blue’ to 172-6 in 36 overs.

Watch: Wellalage gets fourth straight wicket with KL Rahul

While Wellalage finished with 5-40 to register his maiden ODI five-fer, his spin teammate Charith Asalanka also struck four times in his spell to claim 4-18. Maheesh Theekshana accounted for the remaining wicket as the spin trio dismantled the entire Indian line-up for just 213 inside 50 overs.

Wellalage wages lone rebellion, bested by Kuldeep

India’s new-ball speed merchants Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj both struck within their opening spells to dismantle Sri Lanka’s top-order at 25-3. In-form spinner Kuldeep Yadav soon joined in the party by dismissing Sadeera Samarawickrama and Charith Asalanka in quick succession.

At 99-6, Dhananjaya de Silva shared 63 tense runs with bowling hero Dunith Wellalage. Both cricketers slapped 40s each, with the latter of the two even top-scoring in the innings with 42*.

At a time when the game was evenly poised at 162-6, Dhananjaya’s dismissal at the hands of Ravindra Jadeja triggered a lower-order collapse within the Sri Lankan camp, as none of their tailenders managed to overcome mounting run-chase pressure.

Kuldeep Yadav cleaned up Sri Lanka’s number 10 and 11 to finish with 4-43 to script a thrilling 41-run win for the Indian team.

Brief Scores:

India: 213 (49.1)
Rohit Sharma 53 (48), KL Rahul 39 (44)
Dunith Wellalage 5-40 (10), Charith Asalanka 4-18 (9)

Sri Lanka: 172 (41.3)
Dunith Wellalage 42* (46), Dhananjaya de Silva 41 (66)
Kuldeep Yadav 4-43 (9.3), Jasprit Bumrah 2-30 (7)

India won by 41 runs