India ease past Sri Lanka

India beat Sri Lanka by eight wickets and now face England in Sunday's final
21 June 2013

India will play England in the Champions Trophy final after storming to an eight-wicket victory over Sri Lanka at a dank Cardiff Wales Stadium.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni won an important toss, and eventually first-change Ishant Sharma (three for 33) and off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin (three for 48) cashed in.

Then, in pursuit of only 181 for eight, Shikhar Dhawan (68) and then Virat Kohli (58no) settled the issue. Sri Lanka had to graft and scrap for every run, captain Angelo Mathews (51) digging in longest.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Umesh Yadav exerted a new-ball stranglehold as their opponents found themselves two batsmen down inside the first five overs. They lost opener Kusal Perera cheaply, caught at second slip trying to drive at Kumar, and worse was to follow when Tillakaratne Dilshan injured himself and had to go off.

Sri Lanka avoided the immediate pitfall of more early wickets, but could not gather any momentum as the ball continued to jag around for India's seamers. Lahiru Thirimanne and Kumar Sangakkara became the second and third batsmen to be caught by Suresh Raina at second slip, both fencing at Ishant.

Mathews and Mahela Jayawardene did not panic in a fourth-wicket stand of 78 in 19 overs. Dhoni thought he had Jayawardene lbw for just five, but Aleem Dar had not detected an inside edge, and then Mathews survived on 25 after Richard Kettleborough gave him out to a delivery from Ravindra Jadeja that turned and bounced a little too much.

Mathews batted against type in an 85-ball 50 which contained just one four and a six, hoisted high over wide long-on off Ishant. After Jayawardene was bowled trying to pull Ravindra Jadeja in a powerplay which yielded just 12 runs, 16 successive dot balls followed.

A limping Dilshan returned in the 48th over after a series of attempted big hits went awry against Ashwin and four wickets fell for only 13 runs in 20 balls. Try as they might, Sri Lanka still appeared well short of a defendable total.

So it proved in a routine India reply which featured another half-century for Dhawan, to go with his two hundreds in the group stages of this tournament. The left-hander put on 77 with Rohit Sharma, and then another 65 with Kohli.

By the time he was stumped by Sangakkara off Jeevan Mendis' leg-spin, there was no remaining doubt about an outcome confirmed with 15 overs to spare in a match every bit as one-sided as England's victory over South Africa on Wednesday.

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