The India tour of Sri Lanka’s second ODI match began at R.Premadasa Stadium, Colombo on July 20. The match turned out to be a thrilling encounter between the teams. India made an exceptional comeback with the help of Deepak Chahar’s half-century and won the match. In the match which once looked out of India’s hand, they won by 3 wickets and 5 balls remaining.
Sri Lankan openers Avishka Fernando and Minod Bhanuka delivered an awesome performance for the team. The opening duo added 77 runs for the first wicket. However, Yuzvendra Chahal bought India back in the game after picking two back-to-back wickets. Chahal dismissed Minod Bhanuka and Bhanuka Rajapaksa.
Deepak Chahar took India over the line by scoring the winning runs 🤩
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Meanwhile, Fernando got out just after scoring a half-century. Also, Charith Asalanka played an amazing knock of 65 runs for the team. Also, Dhananjaya de Silva and Chamika Karunaratne contributed 32 and 44 runs respectively. Adding to it Sri Lanka reached the score of 275 runs for 9 wickets.
From the Indian bowling unit Vice-captain, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Yuzvendra Chahal picked 3 wickets each. Meanwhile, Deepak Chahar bagged two wickets in his name. Notably, Kuldeep Yadav and Pandya brothers went wicketless in the 2nd ODI.
Meanwhile, during India’s batting opener Prithvi Shaw once again aggressively started the innings. Shaw smashed back-to-back fours in the first over itself. However, India soon faced a batting collapse after Shaw (13), Dhawan (29), and Kishan (1)got out under the score of 65.
Meanwhile, Suryakumar Yadav and Manish Pandey carried forward the innings for India. However soon India lost both Pandey (37) and Hardik Pandya (0) in the 18th over. Mumbai Indians mates Surya (53) and Krunal (35) gave their best but eventually lost their wickets.
Deepak Chahar and Bhuvneshwar Kumar led India towards victory
Sri Lanka was not ready for what came next. India’s tail after a long time delivered an amazing performance for the team. Deepak Chahar and Vice-captain Bhuvneshwar Kumar batted exceptionally. Especially Deepak Chahar scored a half-century after most of the top-order batsmen failed. Chahar and Bhuvneshwar scored 69 and 18 runs respectively. Also, Chahar finished the game with a boundary to win the 3-match ODI series against Sri Lanka.
Great win by the boys. From a tough situation to pull it off was an amazing effort. Great to watch. Well done DC and Surya. Tremendous knocks under pressure. 🇮🇳
— Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) July 20, 2021
Here is what Shikhar Dhawan, Deepak Chahar, and Dasun Shanka said at the end of the match:
Shikhar Dhawan: It felt that the wicket today was much better and we restricted them to a good score. The spinner fought back and the bowlers adjusted their lines and lengths when their batsmen were in. We didn’t start well and it is a good learning lesson for the youngsters that everyday is not the same. They will understand how to handle these situations and how to bring in new strategies. The way Manish Pandey and Suryakumar were batting, we thought they would take us home. Hard luck to Pandey for the way he got out.
The way Krunal fought in the middle was amazing. Everyone showed character. We knew that Chahar has worked hard in the nets on his batting. His presence of mind and calculations against the leg-spinner was amazing. Both Bhuvi and him calculated it really well. I felt the way Sri Lanka planned their innings in both their batting and bowling was amazing. The way they batted and fielded was good to watch. They worked really hard, but glad that we are on the winning side. Every game is a learning lesson and we hope to analyze and get better. We want to put up a good show all the time.
Dasun Shanaka: I am relly proud with the ways the boys played today. It was a really tough game. Credit to the Indians and especially Deepak, who took the game away from us. We started well again but lost several wickets in the middle overs. We shouldn’t give them easy wickets and we need to bat better till the batting powerplay. Actually I didn’t bowl for a while, but maybe me bowling could have made a difference.
Deepak Chahar: Few drop catches (with the ball) and it was hot there and we did well after that, and I got two wickets. In the end we stopped them to 270s which is a decent score. Only one thing was going in my mind (When I came out to bat) and this is the kind of thing you dream when you start playing cricket and when playing for India. No better way to win the match for the nation. Rahul sir told me to play all the balls.
I have played few innings for India A and he has belief in me and always believes in me and that was a game changer. We have a fantastic batting line-up and hopefully I won’t get to bat in the next games. This is the first time for me in such a situation. We were just playing ball by ball and when it came under 50 that is when I decided to hit boundaries and after that six it gave me the momentum.
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