India won a closely fought match against Sri Lanka by 5 wickets in the final T20I match played at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai just a few moments ago. Rohit Sharma invited Sri Lanka into bat and restricted the visitors to just 135. Chasing 136, India lost wickets but Manish Pandey, Iyer played a key role, MS Dhoni finished the match to whitewash Sri Lanka.
Indian captain won an important toss and invited Sri Lanka into bat. Sri Lanka got off to a worse start losing an early wicket of Nishan Dickwella for just 1 run. Washington Sundar who made his T20I debut made the important breakthrough to dismiss dangerous Kusal Perera. Jaydev Unadkat dismissed Tharanga for 11 runs. At the end of 6 overs, Sri Lanka scored just 37 for 3 wickets.
Sadeera and Gunarante added 38 runs for the 4th wicket. Both of them played with positive intent. Hardik Pandya dismissed Sadira for 21 to put Sri Lanka into more trouble. Gunathilaka and captain Thisara Perera could not contribute many runs. Gunaratne was the top scorer for Sri Lanka with 36 runs. Both Shanka and Gunaratne added 26 runs for the 7th wicket. In the last over, Shanka and Danajaya scored 18 runs off Mohammad Siraj. Sri Lanka finished with a total of 136 for 7 in 20 overs.
Chasing the total of 136, India lost an early wicket of KL Rahul for 4 runs. Then Rohit Sharma and Shreyas Iyer played with positive intent scoring 37 runs for 1 after the first six overs. The Indian captain Rohit Sharma was dismissed for 27 off 20 balls.
Shreyas Iyer and Manish Pandey added 42 runs for the third wicket. Iyer was run out for 30 runs. Hardik Pandya was promoted at number 5 and disappointed scoring just 4 runs. In the 17th over, the well set Manish Pandey got dismissed for 32 runs. Dinesh Karthik played a crucial knock and with MS Dhoni helped team India won the match by 5 wickets.
India 139 for 5 in 19.2 overs (Manish Pandey 32, Shreyas Iyer 30, Chameera 2/22, Shanka 2/27) beat Sri Lanka 135 for 7 in 20 overs ( Gunarante 36, Unadkat 2/15, Hardik Pandya 2/25) by 5 wickets.
Captain Thisara Perera said: The way we defended 136 was the great effort by teammates. We learned a lot from this tour. India is a big team at the present moment. If our batting order clicks then, we can a long way.
Captain Rohit Sharma said: It was a great team effort. Today we were playing with 7 batters including Washington Sundar. We wanted to play with 6 batsmen and 1 all-rounder, as discussed before the start of series. In this many youngsters were playing for first or second, but they grabbed the chance with both hands. We are looking forward to the tour of South Africa.
Man of the match and series Jaydev Unadkat said: Things went really well for me in this series. I have been for a long time in domestic cricket and played a lot there. Bowling in the powerplay overs was the plan before the series and thankful for the management giving me a chance.
India climbs to second place in T20I rankings.
