Carrying on his good form from the One Day International series, Suryakumar Yadav scored his second T20 International fifty in the first match of the T20I series against Sri Lanka on Sunday.
Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to chase on a surface that wasn’t very easy for the batsman to play their strokes. The Lankans dismissed Prithvi Shaw in the very first ball of the innings following which skipper Shikhar Dhawan and Sanju Samson managed to steady the ship stitching together a 50 run partnership before the latter was dismissed by leggie Wanindu Hasaranga.
Suryakumar Yadav provided the much-needed impetus for India and managed to score 50 from just 34 balls with the help of 5 fours and 2 sixes. He was dismissed by Hasaranga in the 16th over of the innings. After hitting a six off the delivery just before his dismissal, he went for another big one, only to get caught at long-off.
Indian head coach Rahul Dravid is usually known for his calm demeanor and lack of expressions. It is a rare occurrence to see him frustrated. While his reaction to Surya’s dismissal might not be on the level of Rajasthan Royals’ IPL exit in 2014 but he was visibly disappointed at it, as he knew the importance of a set batsman carrying his bat till the end. It can be expected that the legend will have a few words with Surya considering the nature of the dismissal. As it turns out, the dismissal was in fact a vital point as India could only manage to add another 37 runs in the next 28 balls despite having 6 wickets in hand.
Chasing 165 to win, Sri Lanka had a good start before losing 2 wickets in back-to-back overs to Yuzi Chahal and Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Charitha Asalanka gave a semblance of hope to the hosts before he was dismissed by Deepak Chahar. It all went downhill from there for the Island side as they were bundled out for just 126 and did not even manage to bat out their quota of 20 overs.
After comfortably winning the ODI series, India is 1-0 up in the T20I series. India has a great chance of sealing the series 3-0 which they were unable to do in the ODI leg. With spots for the T20 World Cup at stake, everyone will be trying their best to perform.