There appears to be no improvement in India's fortunes as far as batting is concerned. After a disappointing Asia Cup, there was hardly anything to cheer up a fan of Men in Blue as the team failed to chase 153 and lost to Sri Lanka by five runs in the warm-up Twenty20 tie ahead of World T20 here on Monday.
Barring Suresh Raina (41) and Yuvraj Singh (33) none of the batsmen added much to the score at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium.
Stuart Binny (14) and R Ashwin (19) did put up a strong fight in the slog overs, but tight bowling from Nuwan Kulasekara and Lasith Malinga at the death saw Sri Lanka through.
India's struggle at the top order continued as Shikhar Dhawan (2) and Rohit Sharma (4) got out cheaply. The comeback men Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh appeared to be in good touch. Especially, the Uttar Pradesh batsman dominated from the word go. However, an inside-out shot against Ajantha Mendis saw the ball land straight into Ragana Herath's hand at long off.
Singh showed glimpses of his return to form and displayed his range of strokes with a 28-ball 33 before he edged Kulasekara to captain Kumar Sangakkara.
Ajinkya Rahane (0) had a disappointing day while Virat Kohli (17) and Ravindra Jadeja (12) started well but failed to carry on.
Earlier, off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin gave a good account of himself with a three-wicket haul but Lanka upped the ante in the end to score 153 for six.
Ashwin ended with impressive figures of three for 22 in his four-over spell as the batsmen had lot of trouble playing their strokes on a slowish track.
Amit Mishra (1/38) got some stick but also bowled a few good balls while Suresh Raina (1/12) was lucky to get a wicket.
Nuwan Kulasekara with 21 off 14 balls and Thisara Perera with 18 from 11 deliveries added 30 runs in the last three overs to take the score past 150.
Among the pacers, Varun Aaron worked up good pace in his three overs to end with one for 18 as Mahela Jayawardene (30) and skipper Dinesh Chandimal (29) were the only ones in the top-order, who looked like scoring a few runs after Mahendra Singh Dhoni put the opposition on to bat.
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