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And with that India defeat Sri Lanka by 38 runs and take a lead in the three-match T20I series by 1-0. A valiant effort by Asalanka almost took the game away from India but Deepak Chahar with two wickets in an over brought India right back into the game.

Decent work from Sri Lanka to start off, restricting the heavy batting lineup of India to 164 that doesn’t look anywhere close to par here. The Men in Blue lost a wicket first ball, then recovered well with Dhawan, Samson, and Suryakumar all firing today. Sri Lanka found joy with the change of pace and Hasaranga rattled the batters with his variations as well. Ishan Kishan threw his bat at everything but had little to show for it. With the pitch slowing up and keeping the dew factor in play, this chase was always gonna be tricky.

Bhuvi started with the new ball for India but was extremely unlucky not to get a wicket in the powerplay. After the swing bowlers failed to fetch any wicket in the first two, Krunal came into the attack and scalped Bhanuka in his first over. The plan was simple and effective, get ahead of the run chase in the powerplay and that’s what Sri Lanka did. The spinners came on and rattled the top and middle order of Sri Lanka and Chahar, Bhuvi did the rest in the death. After the fall of Asalanka, a flurry of wickets in the end completely dismantled Sri Lanka and they even fail to play their quota of 20 overs.

Time for Post-match presentation.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar bags in the Man of the Match award.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar: I played ODI after a couple of months, so you take some time to get into the rhythm. It was a good batting wicket but there was some help for bowlers too. The wicket was difficult to bat against the spinners.

Dasun Shanaka: I think 164 was chaseable on this wicket. I think their bowlers upfront started really well. And then there were not enough middle-order batters to finish the game. I think our bowlers did an amazing job. I hope we come out and do better than this in the next game.

Shikhar Dhawan: I thought we were 10-15 runs short but we felt it was still a good total. We played quite well after losing a wicket on the first ball. Getting to 50 in the powerplay was good. Surya is a great player and we enjoy watching him bat. He was taking pressure off me as well. Sri Lanka were playing well but we knew our spinners will get some turn. Yuzi and KP bowled really well. And even Varun, playing his first match. Prithvi is playing really well and I am sure he will bounce back in the next game.

So that's goodbye from me, Anurag, and my partners DG and Akshay from the comm box. Do join us tomorrow for TNPL and The Hundred fixtures in the evening. Good night and take care!!