Iyer, Gill and Kohli fire as India set Sri Lanka daunting target

Shreyas Iyer, Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli fired against Sri Lanka on Thursday (November 2) as India posted 357/8 after being sent into bat in Mumbai. All three batters had opportunities to hit centuries at different junctures of the innings but managed to miss the landmark. Meanwhile, Dilshan Madushanka impressed for Sri Lanka with a five-wicket haul.

Madushanka silenced the crowd very early in the game by castling Rohit Sharma with an away-seaming delivery after the Indian skipper got off the mark with a boundary first ball. The Sri Lankan seamer staged an excellent comeback off the very next delivery to rattle the stumps that brought Kohli out to the middle very early. He got off to a positive start finding boundaries regularly in the powerplay and Gill got going as well after a quiet start.

Kohli and Gill hit a boundary each off Maheesh Theekshana as well after the powerplay, forcing the skipper to take him out of the attack and replace him with the leg spin of Dushan Hemantha. The two batters kept milking the bowling attack to bring up their respective half-centuries and in the process, Kohli went past 400 runs in the tournament. With wickets in hand, it was around the halfway mark the two batters decided to step it up a notch as the boundaries started flowing regularly to put Sri Lanka under pressure.

Gill in particular hit sixes off successive overs to finally overtake Kohli as both the batters looked good to bring up their respective centuries. In what turned out to be an anti-climax, Madushanka came back into the attack to ruin those plans. Gill first edged one behind in his attempt to ramp it over the keeper’s head to fall for 92. And the crowd were stunned again in Madushanka’s next over when he rolled his fingers over the ball once more to force Kohli into a shot early and hit one to short cover. The former skipper fell for 88 and missed an opportunity to go level with Sachin Tendulkar for most hundreds in the format.

The two wickets didn’t harm India’s approach though as Shreyas came out with a positive approach to club three sixes in three overs to race to 26 off just 16 balls. Sri Lanka made inroads at the other end though as KL Rahul and Suryakumar Yadav fell in quick succession. One more wicket at that point could have helped Sri Lanka have a crack at the Indian tail but Shreyas and Ravindra Jadeja denied the opponents that opportunity.

Jadeja was happy playing second fiddle with Shreyas doing bulk of the damage. After going past fifty, Shreyas kept going and at one point looked in great nick to get to the three figure mark especially when he hammered Madushanka for consecutive sixes. But Sri Lanka’s best bowler of the afternoon staged a strong comeback by bowling one slow and wide, forcing the batter to reach for the ball and mistime it, only to get caught for 82. A couple of boundaries from Jadeja in the penultimate over helped India go past 350 and register the highest team score in World Cup history without a century.