Sri Lanka ride on Jayawardene's ton to post 274 for six

Mumbai, Apr 2 (PTI) Mahela Jayawardene slammed a
rollicking 103 as Sri Lanka capitalised on the batting
powerplay to post a decent 274 for six in their World Cup
summit showdown against India here on Saturday.
Electing to bat after winning the toss, Jayawardene used
his vast experience to good effect and anchored the Lankan
innings together on what appeared to be a slow track at the
renovated Wankhede stadium.
The islanders, desperate to regain the coveted cup after
nearly 15 years,lost wickets at regular intervals against the
Indians, who were spurred on by a vociferous jam-packed crowd.
The Indian bowlers were disciplined in the first half of the
innings but conceded as many as 63 runs in the batting
powerplay to undo all the good work.
Apart from Jayawardene's 88-ball knock, captain Kumar
Sangakkara (48) Tillakaratne Dilshan (33) and Nuwan Kulasekara
(32) were the other notable performers as the Lankans left
India with an asking rate of 5.50 runs per over for clinching
the title.
For India, Zaheer Khan (2/60) and Yuvraj Singh (2/49)
were the pick of the wicket-takers.
Both the Indian new ball bowlers bowled a tidy line and
length and did not allow the Sri Lankans to get off to a
flying start while the fielding was also sharp.
Pace spearhead Zaheer's first three overs were maidens
and that put some pressure on the two Lankan openers who were
not being able to capitalise on the powerplay overs.
Tillakaratne broke the stranglehold by hitting the first
boundary of the innings in the 5th over by pulling Sreesanth
to the square leg fence.
In the same over, he produced a delightful cut to the
point for his second boundary.
Tharanga looked completely out of sorts at the other end
as he found it difficult to find the gaps as Zaheer bowled a
searching length right through his opening spell.
Zaheer drew first blood in his fourth over by evicting
Tharanga with an outgoing delivery and Virender Sehwag holding
on to diving catch at first slip much to the delight of a
capacity crowd at the Wankhade stadium. Tharanga scored just
two runs off 20 balls.
The Lankans could manage just 31 runs in the first ten
overs, their lowest in the tournament. That was largely
because of Zaheer excellent first spell of 5-3-6-1.
Captain Kumar Sangakkara, who joined the action after
Tharanga's dismissal, sought to force the pace of scoring by
spanking Sreesanth for two consecutive boundaries while
Dilshan also hit him for a boundary to get 15 runs off the
over.
Dilshan and Sangakkara put on 43 runs for the second
wicket before Harbhajan Singh struck by getting rid of Dilshan
(33), who scored 500 runs in the tournament.