India beat Sri Lanka by five wickets in the third one-day international at the Nehru Stadium in Margao, Goa, on Wednesday to level the four-match series 1-1.

Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene won the toss and elected to bat first hoping to repeat their win at Rajkot. But Indian pacer Zaheer Khan who wanted to justify his inclusion in the world cup squad rocked the lankan innings by picking up three quick wickets. He got Tharanga, Jayasuriya and Sangakkara in quick succession. His match winning figures of 5- 42 earned him his second MoM award. The Indian bowling was bang on from the first over with apt support by comeback man Agarkar and Munaf Patel. Harbhajan picked up 2 wickets but couldn’t stop Russel Arnold from getting his half century.

India however restricted the Lankans to 230-8 in their allotted 50 overs needing 231 for a win to level the four match series.

Ganguly and Sehwag opened the Indian innings, Sehwag looked like coming back to form by striking three consecutive boundaries of Maharoof but soon fell to Fernando after scoring 12. Tendulkar fell cheaply when he played a delivery on to his stumps. Ganguly and Yuvraj steadied the innings and put up 48 runs before Yuvraj held out one to Kulasekara for 21.

Meanwhile Ganguly continued his good run with the bat, scoring 48 falling 2 runs short of his fifty but their on it was Rahul Dravid and Mahendra Singh Dhoni who came up with fine half-centuries after the team was in a spot of bother at 94 for 4 to successfully chase down Sri Lanka’s fighting 230 for 8 in their 50 overs.

India reached the target with 21 balls to spare. During the course of 66, Dravid reached a landmark of scoring 10,000 one-day runs joining teammate Tendulkar and Ganguly and Lara, Inzamam and Jayasuriya.

The last match will be played at Visakhapatnam on Saturday as both teams would be eager to clinch the series.

Brief Scores

Sri Lanka 230-8 in 50 overs lost to India 233-5 in 46.3 overs.