Sangakkara leads SL charge with fine 50

NEW DELHI: Kumar Sangakkara slammed his 77th ODI half-century to lead the Sri Lankan charge in the Celkon Mobile Cup final match at Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain.

Scorecard

Sangakkara reached his fifty in 85 balls with the help of 3 boundaries and along with Lahiru Thirimanne revived the Sri Lankan innings by putting up a decent 100-plus run stand after they lost early wickets.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar put the Sri Lankans on the backfoot early in the match when he dismissed openers Upul Tharanga and Mahela Jayawardene cheaply.

Bhuvneshwar, who continued his fine form in the tournament, first dismissed Tharanga and then picked up the prized scalp of Jayawardene (22), who is playing in his 400th one-day international.

Tharanga (16) put up a decent 27-run partnership for the opening wicket with Jayawardene before the southpaw was caught behind by skipper MS Dhoni, who earlier elected to field first.

The reigning Champions Trophy winners, India, were boosted for the finale as regular skipper Dhoni returned to the playing XI after being laid low by a hamstring injury. The Indians also brought in pacer Vinay Kumar in the team in place of Umesh Yadav.

For Sri Lanka, Suranga Lakmal has come into the playing XI for Dilhara Lokuhettige, while Kusal Perera has replaced Jeevan Mendis.

Their campaign in tatters after back-to-back defeats in the first leg of the tournament, the Indians fought back with two bonus-point wins to cruise into the final at the expense of hosts West Indies.

India entered the final as table-toppers having posted two wins from four matches -- same as the other two teams -- but they had the advantage of enjoying a better net run-rate.

But it won't be easy for the Sri Lankans as they had just suffered a defeat to India, a result that paved the way for their South Asian neighbour's convincing entry into the title clash ahead of the hosts.

Teams:

India : MS Dhoni (Capt.), Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin, Shikhar Dhawan, Ravindra Jadeja, Dinesh Karthik, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Suresh Raina, Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Vinay Kumar.

Sri Lanka : Angelo Mathews (Capt.), Kusal Perera, Upul Tharanga, Kumar Sangakkara (wk), Lahiru Thirimanne, Mahela Jayawardene, Dinesh Chandimal, Lasith Malinga, Rangana Herath, Shaminda Eranga, Suranga Lakmal

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Shweta Pandey

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