Highly positive leadership and bowling part-time efficiency maximize the first T20I series after the World Cup victory.
Kolkata: Although Sri Lanka’s latest meltdown can be traced to their continued free fall in the white-ball format, it has robbed India of the spotlights where they rose from the ashes on Tuesday afternoon.
But this time it indeed seemed so, more so when Sri Lanka needed 28 runs in the last 28 balls with two set batsmen on the crease. What followed was proper bedlam but a very Sri Lankan one given their middle-order meltdowns in the series so far.
Spearheading this havoc were all spinners, and the least expected ones were Washington Sundar, who was out of Sunrisers Hyderabad’s playing eleven in the ongoing season, Rinku Singh, who bowled just 60 balls in his T20 career before this match, and Suryakumar Yadav, who was a batsman bowling his maiden T20 delivery in T10 years.
The only functional differences that can plausibly have impacted the situation in this fashion must therefore be the IPL experience of the match that allowed even part-time bowlers to snatch a game in this manner.
Riyan Parag smiles and says,
“It was fun.” “
And that is why perhaps we did not feel the nerves; that’s why we began planning it in such an entertaining way.
It was very sudden, Rinku bhai bowling the 19th over. I was pretty sure that (Mohammad) Siraj bhai would take the final over, but suddenly Surya bhai came in and completed the over and got it to a super over; therefore, I think everybody was quite relaxed.
