Sri Lankan bowler Maheesh Theekshana mentioned the smaller field sizes and better pitches in India after Sri Lanka’s impressive series victory against the Indian team. Importantly, Sri Lanka won the third and last one-day international match by 110 runs on August 7 at R.Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.
This win gave them the three-game series with a 2-0 score and marked their first series win against India since 1997. Speaking about India’s loss, Theekshana noted that Indian players are accustomed to playing on high-quality pitches and smaller fields, which helped them perform well on the spin-friendly surfaces in Sri Lanka.
“In India, they often play on good pitches with short boundaries. We expected that if the pitch at Premadasa had some spin, we could use our strong spin bowlers to our advantage. This kind of pitch is common in domestic matches, so our batters are used to it,” Theekshana explained after Sri Lanka’s win.
It’s worth noting that India lost 27 wickets to spin bowling in this series, which is the most any team has lost in a three-match series. Jeffrey Vandersay took 8 wickets, Dunit Wellalage got 7, and Charisth Asalanka claimed 6, making them the top wicket-takers for Sri Lanka. Indian batters struggled to handle their spin attack.
India couldn’t reach the goals of 231, 241, and 249 in the first two games, even though their captain, Rohit Sharma, started well. He scored 58 runs in 47 balls and 64 runs in 44 balls in the first two matches, and in the third one-day international (ODI), he was out after scoring 35 runs in 20 balls.
Rohit Sharma ended up as the top scorer of the series, with 157 runs in three innings, averaging 52.33 and having a strike rate of 141.44, including two scores of 50 or more. But no other player did as well; Axar Patel was the next highest scorer with 79 runs in three innings, averaging 26.
Because of their weak performance, India lost the series, which is a rare occurrence and has made their preparation for the 2025 Champions Trophy even harder.
