Kuldeep leads fightback as India storm into Asia Cup final

No matter the format or the era, the Indian team’s vulnerability against relatively unknown spinners, especially those coming out of Sri Lanka, is chronicled ad nauseam.

Usually, though, they happen to be of a mysterious variety, not an inconspicuous 20-year-old with a no-drama approach to left-arm spin. In a world where bowlers tend to rely on six different deliveries to get through an over, Dunith Wellalage used two: one which turns and the other that doesn’t.

Armed with the basics and an abundance of accuracy, skill and flight variations, the boy who barely just graduated from the Under-19 level, ended with figures of 10-1-40-5. His senior by eight years - Charith Asalanka - finished with four for 18 in nine uncomplicated overs. 

Nine wickets for two fundamental spinners and one for their mystery variant - Maheesh Theekshana - meant India lost all their wickets to tweakers en route their pedestrian 213 runs in 49.1 overs.

Oh, and Wellalage wasn’t done after picking up his career-best figures. He came out at No.8 and scored his highest ODI score to date with a fine, fighting 42 not out, but India were not going to be undone. Bowling with world-class intensity, they kept Sri Lanka down to 171 all out in 41.3 overs as Kuldeep Yadav (4/43) once again wielding his magic. The 41-run win took into the final of the Asia Cup.

The entire game had a very 90s sub-continental cricket feel to it with the spinners running riot on a stop-and-go sort of wicket, while the batters look to survive just long enough to see if they can accelerate towards the end. 

The Indians didn’t have a very good run at survival on Tuesday, they lost wickets so quickly even Thushara Cooray, a scorer in the business for close to four decades, couldn’t keep up with calling out the dismissals.

The slow burner was in such stark contrast to the happenings of Monday, where India gave Pakistan a front-seat show to dominance, that it was unsettling from the time Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill walked out to bat after having chosen to. 

To expect a series of knocks so free-flowing is imprudent, but not one batter looked at ease throughout, save for maybe Rohit and KL Rahul. 

While the Rohit-Gill alliance yielded 80 runs from 11.1 overs, it wasn’t one of surety, and it sure wasn’t what was witnessed against Pakistan. In a sense, that brute of a delivery from Wellalage, one which drew Gill far forward and dipped before spinning to clip the off stump, was the turning point in the game. 

To make matters worse, the pitch got slower through the day - perhaps why India brought in Axar Patel for this contest while leaving out Shardul Thakur - and made stroke-making that much harder. 

Rohit was possibly the only one who was undone by a delivery which slid through at pace after coming in with the angle. It came minutes after the Mumbaikar had become the sixth Indian to cross the 10,000-run mark in ODIs. That fact someone batting in his 241st innings found the going tough is telling. 

Sri Lanka found out just how hard it was after losing six wickets for a mere 99 runs, courtesy Jasprit Bumrah (2/30), Mohammed Siraj and Kuldeep. But Sri Lanka had a little something cooking once Dhananjaya de Silva and Wellalage got together. 

Though it was an unlikely alliance, it looked a good one for they added 63 runs in quick time to keep the hosts in the hunt. But it only lasted until Dhananjaya tried a bold heave off Ravindra Jadeja (2/33) and ended up in the hands of Gill at mid-on. Any hope Sri Lanka had ended there, and Wellalage’s shoulders slumped for the first time on a memorable day for him.