Match Report
Sri Lanka Manages To Hold Nerve, See How Twitter Reacted To Sri Lanka’s Three-wicket Win
By Aditya Pratap - Jul 23, 2021 11:59 pm
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The third One-Day International between Sri Lanka and India had different prospects for both teams. While India eyed to give the opportunity to fresh faces, Sri Lanka hoped to get crucial points in Super League and a consolation win to go with momentum in the T20I series.

Avishka Fernando’s match-winning knock helped Sri Lanka to win the third ODI

Shikhar Dhawan won the toss and opted to bat first. India named five debutants – Sanju Samson, Nitish Rana, Rahul Chahar, K Gowtham and Chetan Sakariya – for this game. Dhawan looked solid before getting out but Prithvi Shaw was in the mood to play a big knock. He found a good ally in debutant Samson, who batted at number three.

Also Read: India vs Sri Lanka series is like University vs School, says Ramiz Raja

Shaw and Samson played good shots but threw their good starts while in their 40s. Suryakumar Yadav, too, got out in the 40s and left the rest of the batsmen to do the repair job. India lost wickets in a cluster and went from 179/4 to 195/8 in no time.

Rahul Chahar and Navdeep Saini hung their bats to drag the Indian total to 225. The match was reduced to 47 overs due to rain and the revised target for Sri Lanka was 227 runs to win the final ODI.

In response, Sri Lanka started their pursuit of the target cautiously. Minod Bhanuka was dismissed by K Gowtham in his first over. Avishka Fernando and Bhanuka Rajapaska shared a 109-run stand for the second wicket before the latter got out after scoring stroke-filled 65 runs in 56 balls, where he hit 12 fours.

Chetan Sakariya tried to bring India back with two quick wickets but Fernando was reluctant. He held the one end tight and shared another crucial partnership with Charith Asalanka, who scored vital 24 runs before getting out to Hardik Pandya. Fernando got out after scoring 76 runs but took Sri Lanka within touching distance.

Also Read: Sri Lanka announced revised 24-member team for India series

Sri Lanka crawled past India’s total with three wickets in hand and eight overs to spare. This was their second ODI victory of 2021.

See how Twitter reacted to this game;