Muttiah Muralidharan during a fielding effort in Brisbane on Tuesday. (Reuters)

Brisbane: Gautam Gambhir’s explosive unbeaten century provided the sparks on a gloomy day which saw India’s second match of the tri-series against Sri Lanka being abandoned due to rain Tuesday.

Gambhir smashed a stroke-filled unbeaten 102 and teamed up with captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni (88 not out) to propel India to a competitive 267 for four before the rains again played spoilsport to force the abandonment of the day-night encounter at the Gabba.

The islanders did not even get a chance to begin the run chase as the second successive match of the tri-series was affected by the weather. The opening game between India and Australia was also abandoned Sunday just when the game was heading for a thrilling finish.

The showers came down immediately after the Indian innings and the two umpires Rudi Koertzen of South Africa and Steve Davis of Australia waited for some time before deciding to abandon the game.

Both the teams got two points each which took India to the top of the points table with four points from two matches. Sri Lanka and hosts Australia have two points each. The action will now shift to Sydney where Australia will play their next match against Sri Lanka on Friday.

Gambhir and Dhoni put up an unbroken 184-run partnership to haul India out of a mid-innings mess after Muttiah Muralidharan’s double strike left them at precarious 83 for four in the 21st over.

The Delhi batsman reached his third ODI century off only 99 balls and in all faced 101 deliveries for his unbeaten 102 runs, hitting 10 fours and one six.

Dhoni scored his 88 runs off 95 balls and hit five fours and a six.

Gambhir was lucky to be reprieved on 11 when wicket-keeper Kumar Sangakkara failed to latch on to a steer off the bowling of Ishara Amerasinghe.

India were in a familiar mess after openers Virender Sehwag (33) and Sachin Tendulkar (35) put on 68 runs for the first wicket in 14-odd overs before the mini collapse began.

Tendulkar was the first one to go when he dragged a delivery from Lasith Malinga on to his stumps after batting for 52 balls and 66 minutes and hitting two cover-driven fours off Chaminda Vaas.

Tendulkar, however, had his moment of glory when he became the world’s first batsman to complete 16,000 one-day runs at the score of 28.

Sehwag, dropped at point on 31 off Vaas, lasted only two more deliveries.

The Indian line-up appeared a bit fidgety with Yuvraj Singh (two) and Rohit Sharma (zero) falling in the opening over of Muralidharan.

Coming back in the team after recovering from his troublesome knee, Yuvraj aimed an expensive drive off a flighted delivery and edged a catch to the lone slip Mahela Jayawardene.

Rohit was dismissed two deliveries later though he got a bad decision when he apparently missed an edge but Koertzen ruled him out caught by the wicket-keeper.

Dhoni got off the blocks quickly but after a certain point, Gambhir gave full vent to his wide range of strokes to bring Sri Lankans to submission. His pick up off a fuller delivery from Malinga, which he sent over long off for a six, was a sight to behold.

The 100-run stand between the two came off 126 balls and the next 50 were added off only 30 more balls.

At the start of the final over, Gambhir needed eight runs to score his century. He came on the strike off the second ball and smashed the next two for fours to reach his third century in his 39th game.

Sangakkara admitted his side needed to do a bit of rethinking on how to bowl in the slog overs. “We have something to work on to keep the scores less in the last 10 overs,” he said.

Sangakkara added that the winning target of 268 was not out of the reach. “It was a bit disappointing as it would have been a good score to chase. We were very confident about it,” he said.