Colombo: A superb half-century from Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and efficient swing bowling from Irfan Pathan helped India defeat Sri Lanka by 26 runs in the warm-up match ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup.
Earlier in the day, India won the toss and elected to bat first. India fielded there number one team. India received a massive setback before the world cup as Gautam Gambhir who was batting on five was hit by a Lasith Malinga delivery on the wrist. Gambhir left the field immediately and the Indian team will be hoping he recovers on time.
Nuwan Kulasekara then got into his strides and removed both Sehwag and Raina, India’s man in form Virat Kohli couldn’t do much as he got out on the individau score of eight. India at that time was struggling at 46 for the loss of three wickets. The comeback man
Yuvraj Singh also didn’t do much and got out on a Herath delivery.
Indian team was in a desperate need of a partnership and MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma provided exactly that. Together they put 78 runs for the fifth wicket to get India out of trouble. Dhoni remained unbeaten on 55 runs.
Chasing a target of 147 runs, Sri Lanka lost both their openers to Pathan very early in the innings. Kumar Sangakkara and Angelo Mathews tried to steady things and put up a descent little partnership. L Balaji who is making a comeback into the side after three years got the wicket of Mathews and Harbhajan Singh bowled Sangakkara to ensure that there was no coming back from the Lankans.
Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene tried to delay his arrival as much as possible to give younger players an opportunity but that didn’t work in his favor as they kept losing wickets to some consistent bowling from the Indian team.
Irfan Pathan finished the match with a magical bowling figure of 5-25 in his four overs.
Indian skipper MS Dhoni will be delighted with the way his bowlers bowled and will especially be happy with the fact that Indian bowlers got all the Sri Lankan wickets.
Brief Score:
India: 146/5 in 20 overs (Dhoni 55*, Rohit Sharma 37, Kulasekara 2-39)
Sri Lanka: 120/10 in 19.3 overs (Sangakkara 32, Pathan 5-25)
By Indian Sports News Network
