Visakhapatnam:
Buoyed by an overwhelming victory in the previous game, a resilient India would look to continue the momentum and seal off their second successive T20 series win when they take on Sri Lanka in the third and final Twenty20 International.
India shrugged off their embarrassing defeat in opening T20 match in Pune with a commanding show in Ranchi, where they outclassed the island nation by 69 runs to level the series.
The Indian batsmen had struggled to cope with the ‘green’ track in Pune but adjusted well on a slow strip at Ranchi, where they did not put a foot wrong.
The bowlers, too, were in complete control, never letting the Sri Lankan batsmen dominate. Moreover, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s captaincy was impressive and all his experiments, be it reshuffling of the batting order or bowling tactics, paid off.
India not only mastered the conditions but also executed their plans to perfection.
The flying start that openers Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma provided India, gave Dhoni a chance to experiment with the batting order.
The move to send Hardik Pandya ahead of himself and Yuvraj Singh worked well as the young batsman came up with a fiery cameo. In Australia, Pandya did not get an opportunity to show his batting prowess but he certainly made an impression in Ranchi last night.
It required a lot of muscle power and accurate shot selection to get runs and Pandya did a decent job.
However, Yuvraj Singh, who came to bat at number seven, did not get enough time and was out for a duck. It will be good if the elegant left-hander get some time to spend in the middle before the next month’s World Twenty20.
Dhoni has conceded that it will be difficult to send him up the order since the top-four are doing extremely well but showed intent of giving Yuvraj more chances to bat for longer period.
