The second T20I between Sri Lanka and India took place after getting postponed to Wednesday. Krunal Pandya returned positive for Covid-19 and forced a shakeup in the Indian lineup, which resulted in four debutants for India.
Shikhar Dhawan fielded with five batsmen and six bowlers for the second T20I. Krunal and all eight players that came in close contact with him were ruled out of the remaining games.
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India scored 132 runs while batting first after losing the toss. Dhawan top-scored with 40 runs but they came at a slow pace as he consumed 42 balls. Devdutt Padikkal scored 29 runs to help them boost for a big total but India were clearly lacking the experience in the middle order.
India started their defence of this modest total in a fine fashion. Bhuvneshwar Kumar drew the first blood as Avishka Fernando was caught by Rahul Chahar near the boundary ropes. However, the wicket was a result of some fine fielding display by Rahul Chahar.
On the fourth ball of Bhuvneshwar’s second over, Fernando flicked the ball and it looked to be going for a six. However, Rahul Chahar covered a long distance and grabbed the ball. As the motion was taking him across the boundary ropes, he threw the ball in the air to catch a rebound and gave India their first breakthrough of the night.
See the video here;
Rahul Chahar's presence of mind gets India a wicket off Bhuvi's bowling ☝🏽
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India tightened the screw on Sri Lanka with some fine bowling display by spinners. Varun Chakravarthy and Rahul Chahar grabbed one wicket each while Kuldeep Yadav managed to take two wickets.
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Dhananjaya de Silva played a superb innings of 40 runs in 34 balls to take Sri Lanka over the line with four wickets in hand.
