Colombo, Sept 12 (AFP\/APP): Kuldeep Yadav starred as India overcame a brilliant all-round effort from Sri Lanka’s Dunith Wellalage to win a tense Asia Cup clash by 41 runs on Tuesday and book a place in the final.<\/p>\n
Kuldeep took four wickets including the final two as India defended 213, bowling out Sri Lanka for 172 to silence a large home crowd at Colombo’s R. Premadasa Stadium.<\/p>\n
India recorded their second straight Super Four win in the 50-over tournament, a prelude to the upcoming ODI World Cup, and ended Sri Lanka’s 13-match winning streak in ODIs.<\/p>\n
Wellalage, who claimed his maiden ODI five-wicket haul, remained unbeaten on 42 when he ran out of partners as left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep wrapped up the opposition tail in 41.3 overs.<\/p>\n
It was India’s third straight day on the field after they crushed Pakistan by 228 runs on Monday in a match that was played across two days due to rain.<\/p>\n
The next Super Four match between Sri Lanka and Pakistan on Thursday will decide the second finalists between the two teams.<\/p>\n
India skipper Rohit Sharma scored 53 to hand his team a brisk start but Wellalage hit back.<\/p>\n
The 20-year-old returned figures of 5-40 including the key wickets of Rohit and Virat Kohli with strong support from part-time spinner Charith Asalanka, who claimed four victims for 18 runs.<\/p>\n
Rohit entered an elite list of players with over 10,000 ODI runs and hit his second successive fifty.<\/p>\n
Wellalage struck with his first ball of the match when he bowled Shubman Gill for 19 and there was no looking back for the young spinner.<\/p>\n
He made the home fans erupt with the wicket of Kohli who fell for three a day after an unbeaten 122 against Pakistan at the same venue.<\/p>\n
Rohit was also bowled by Wellalage who snared his third scalp in three overs.<\/p>\n
Ishan Kishan, who made 33, and previous-match centurion KL Rahul attempted to rebuild the innings with a stand of 63.<\/p>\n
Wellalage ended that partnership when he got Rahul caught and bowled for 39 and then took his fifth.<\/p>\n
Asalanka kept chipping away from the other end and was on a hat-trick with India on 186-9, but Axar Patel took the total past 200 after a nearly 45-minute rain break and hit 26.<\/p>\n
India hit back with regular wickets and Jasprit Bumrah struck twice.
\nAsalanka attempted to increase the run-rate but became Kuldeep’s second wicket.<\/p>\n
Dhananjaya de Silva fought back along with Wellalage in a threatening seventh-wicket stand of 63 but Ravindra Jadeja broke the partnership with the wicket of De Silva for 41.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Colombo, Sept 12 (AFP\/APP): Kuldeep Yadav starred as India overcame a brilliant all-round effort from Sri Lanka’s Dunith Wellalage to win a tense Asia Cup clash by 41 runs on Tuesday and book a place in the final. Kuldeep took four wickets including the final […]<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90207,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cricket-news","category-latest-sports-news"],"yoast_head":"\n