Difficult Situation But India Decided To Stay On, Play Series: Dhawan

Mumbai: After Team India’s 1-2 loss in the T20I series against Sri Lanka, skipper Shikhar Dhawan said the non-availability of players for the last two T20Is was a “difficult situation” for the team.

Kunal Pandya tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday and eight Indian players – Prithvi Shaw, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Yuzvendra Chahal, Deepak Chahar, Manish Pandey, Ishan Kishan and K Gautam – were identified. And so they were thrown out of the rest of the games.

After Sri Lanka’s T20 series win, Dhawan said, “It was a difficult situation for us but as a team, we decided that we will stop and play the series. I learned a lot as a captain.”

Dhawan said, “The last match was very close, today was a holiday for the batting unit but the boys will learn from it. We lost a lot of wickets today and the Sri Lankan bowlers bowled well.”

“When you lose wickets early and you don’t have long batting, you are under pressure. Both the teams played with great spirit and it is a beautiful feeling,” he said.

Chasing 82, Sri Lanka got off to a good start as Rahul Chahar dismissed opener Avishka Fernando in the sixth over.

It was a slow start from Sri Lanka but the hosts were barely out as they needed only 82 runs to win. Chahar took two more wickets as he dismissed Minod Bhanuka and Sadira Samarawickrama but was unable to stop Sri Lanka from chasing down the target.

Hasaranga celebrated his 24th birthday in style as he picked four wickets to restrict India to 81/8 Sri Lanka needed 82 runs to win against the depleted Indian side in the series decider and the hosts chased down the target comfortably inside 15 overs.

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