Twitter Reactions: Sri Lanka take the game down to the wire but India edge past with ease

Dhoni hit a boundary on the on-side to finish it off in style and take the team home.

By Ankit Mishra

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2 Min Read

MS Dhoni & Dinesh Karthik
info
MS Dhoni celebrates with Dinesh Karthik after winning the game. (Photo Source: Twitter)

If you made your decision about where the match was headed based on the first innings, you were in for a surprise. The experts got it wrong this time as the Wankhede wicket wasn’t a belter but rather the ball bounced off the surface a lot more, as it got older there was movement as well and batting wasn’t as easy as expected. Sri Lanka for a change did give India a fight in the T20I series but not quite enough to win a game.

But to their credit, the Lankans did make Rohit Sharma & Co. sweat out in a modest chase of 135. The runs weren’t on offer easily and as the game went deep the pressure was mounting on the Indians. It all boiled down to the finisher MS Dhoni to take India home from a seemingly tricky situation. When a professional is at work, things sail smooth and that’s what happened as the Indian team won the game by 5 wickets.

Batting first they had a poor start once again as the Indian opening bowlers Jaydev Unadkat and debutant Washington Sundar bowled tight, giving nothing away and asking constant questions. Unadkat was successful in getting rid of the dangerous Niroshan Dickwella, the next man in Kusal Perera handed Washington his maiden T20I wicket with a return catch.

Upul Tharanga didn’t last long and was Unadkat’s second scalp. Samawickrama and Asela Gunaratne contributed 55 runs combined with 21 and 36 respectively to take them over the 100-run mark. Dasun Shanaka’s 29 and Akila Dhananjaya’s 7-ball 11 took them to 135/7 in 20 overs.

Among the Indian bowlers, Unadkat was the pick as he concluded his quota of overs with 2 wickets for 15 runs. Hardik Pandya also accounted for a couple while all the other bowlers had one apiece. It was another tough game for Mohammed Siraj as he spent 45 runs in his share of overs and leaked runs when all others were quite compact.

Rohit Sharma had a start scoring 27 but holed out in the deep after struggling against Dhananjaya. Shreyas Iyer and Manish Pandey contributed 30 and 32 to shape the chase up for the team. In the end, Dinesh Kartik’s 18 and Dhoni’s 16 took India home as they won the series 3-0.

Here is how Twitterati reacted as the game went down to the last over:

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