Sri Lanka 240 for 9 (Avishka 40, Kamindu 40, Washington 3-30, Kuldeep 2-33) beat India 208 (Rohit 64, Axar 44, Vandersay 6-33, Asalanka 3-20) by 32 runs
Sri Lanka won the toss, batted first on a pitch where the spinners got the ball to stop, grip, and turn viciously at times, and recovered brilliantly from being six down for under 150. Dunith Wellalage made a telling contribution down the order, defying the conditions at the R Premadasa Stadium and scoring at over a run a ball.
Rohit Sharma defied conditions to an even more remarkable degree at the start of India's chase, putting them well ahead of the asking rate with a blazing half-century. Then India collapsed against Sri Lanka's spinners, and half their side was back in the dressing room before they had got to 140.
All these things happened in the first ODI on Friday, and they happened again two days later as Sri Lanka chased their first win of this white-ball tour by India. They had tied the third and final T20I, only for India to claim a Super Over win. They had tied the first ODI too.
Sri Lanka were desperate to go one better, they finally did, and their hero wasn't even part of their original squad. Jeffrey Vandersay, a man who had made his debut in December 2015 but only played 22 ODIs before this one, a legspinner for long consigned to understudy status, was only called into the squad on the eve of this match thanks to Wanindu Hasaranga's hamstrings. And Vandersay ripped through the heart of India's batting, taking out Rohit, Shubman Gill, Shivam Dube, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul in the space of 29 balls from his end as 97 for no loss became 147 for 6.
Where India had recovered from a not-dissimilar collapse on Friday, they couldn't quite manage it this time. Axar Patel and Washington Sundar brought them to within 56 runs of their target with a 38-run stand for the seventh wicket, with Vandersay mostly out of the attack in this time. But just when India threatened to inch ahead, there was another flashback to Friday. Charith Asalanka had taken three wickets with his part-time offspin then, and now he brought himself back and took out both Axar and Washington in successive overs, and that was that, more or less.
Sri Lanka's 32-run win was their first over India in an ODI since July 2021. They had lost six straight meetings since then before Friday's tie. Vandersay's 6 for 33 continued a proud tradition: he became the fifth Sri Lanka bowler - after Muthiah Muralidaran, Ajantha Mendis, Angelo Mathews and Akila Dananjaya - to pick up a six-for or better in an ODI against India.
With the conditions being what they were, Sri Lanka had packed their spin attack for this game, picking five including the ambidextrous Kamindu Mendis who came in for the seamer Mohamed Shiraz.
Kamindu made an important contribution with his primary skill, scoring 40 and putting on 72 for the seventh wicket with Wellalage, off just 68 balls, after India had reduced Sri Lanka to 136 for 6. The surfeit of spin didn't seem like that good an idea when India's chase began, with Wellalage, Dananjaya and Kamindu showing a distinct lack of control early on, and Rohit taking full advantage of the first-powerplay field restrictions. These three spinners bowled six wicketless overs between them and conceded 53 as India raced to 76 for no loss in the first ten. Rohit scored 51 of those runs, bringing up his half-century off just 29 balls, getting there in the 10th over with a carved six over cover off Kamindu.
He had moved to 64 off 43 when he tasted the flip side of the aggression that had brought him all his runs. Vandersay extracted a bit of extra bounce, and the switch-sweep ended up in the hands of the diving Pathum Nissanka at backward point.
Having got that opening, Vandersay took control. Between Gill top-edging a cover drive and Rahul bottom-edging one onto his stumps, Vandersay showed the virtue of attacking the stumps, with natural variation off the surface allowing him to test both edges persistently. Kohli and Iyer were both lbw to balls that hurried on with the angle after drifting in through the air, and the left-handed Dube was lbw to one that ripped in while keeping low.
Before they knew it, India were in the mire. Axar and Washington held on for 60 balls, calmly but not without moments of fortune, before Asalanka got the former caught and bowled with one that stuck in the pitch. Then Washington, who had just survived a Dananjaya legbreak that burst past his inside edge and bounced over the stumps, was lbw to an Asalanka delivery that went with the arm from round the wicket; his wicket was the fourth of five lbws in India's innings, to go with one bowled.
That India would be chasing 241 had seemed unlikely when Kuldeep Yadav and Washington, India's most successful bowlers, had bowled back-to-back wicket maidens in the 34th and 35th overs of Sri Lanka's innings to leave them at 136 for 6.
Sri Lanka were going nowhere. Avishka Fernando and Kusal Mendis had put on 74 for the second wicket after Mohammed Siraj had kicked off the match by sending Nissanka back with a perfectly pitched outswinger, but Sri Lanka had lost 5 for 62 thereafter.
This was the sort of pitch where the danger of Axar's straighter one was extremely pronounced, because he was frequently getting the ball to rip past the right-hander's outside edge. He didn't have the luck to go with how well he was bowling, but the wickets were coming at the other end, with Washington starting Sri Lanka's slide by having Avishka caught off the leading edge before having Kusal lbw missing a sweep off a full ball.
The runs came in a trickle thereafter. When Kamindu, batting unusually low at No. 8, joined Wellalage, Sri Lanka had scored seven runs in their last 4.5 overs while losing Janith Liyanage and Asalanka.
But Wellalage batted with freedom, and found the bit of luck that any significant knock needs in such conditions, his - and Sri Lanka's - first six coming off a miscue that just cleared long-on, and another mis-hit off the next ball landing in no-man's land beyond midwicket running back. Then he struck the sweetest hit of the innings, driving a good-length ball from Siraj over the wide long-off boundary.
Kamindu showed plenty of smarts as well as the rare ability to read Kuldeep out of his hand, bringing up his first boundary with a perfectly executed reverse-sweep, but he was definitely the support act in the seventh-wicket stand, contributing 26 off 35 while Wellalage made 39 off 33.
The return of the fast bowlers in the end overs, though, freed Kamindu up, and India's tempers frayed a little as he and Dananjaya gave Sri Lanka the finish they desired, putting on 31 off 22 balls. When Dananjaya launched Siraj down the ground for four in the 49th over, the fast bowler followed up with a bouncer garnished with verbals.
In the end, India's spinners - including Rohit who bowled two overs - combined for figures of 6 for 112 in 31 overs. Their three seamers - including Dube who bowled two overs - ended up with 1 for 111 from 19. Sri Lanka had five spinners to India's three-and-a-bit, and that ended up having a massive influence on the result.
