INDIA COMPLETES THE PERFECT TOUR

Skipper Virat Kohli’s knock of 82 runs in 54 balls was more than sufficient for India to coast to a comfortable seven wicket win with four balls to spare in the one-off Twenty20 encounter against Sri Lanka played under lights at the R. Premadasa Stadium yesterday.

India thus ended their twomonth long tour of Sri Lanka with a clean sweep of wins in all three formats. Even then, the match was evenly poised at the halfway stage of the innings with India reaching 82 for two wickets.

However, India were unruffled with Skipper Kohli taking over the lead role and Manish Pandey provided the support as he remained unbeaten on 51 in 36 balls.

The pair were associated in a match-winning 119-run partnership for the third wicket from only 77 balls.

Earlier, the match was delayed due to rain and got underway 40 minutes after the scheduled start of time.

India Skipper Kohli won the toss for the eighth occasion in this tour and invited Sri Lanka to take first lease of the wicket.

Openers Niroshan Dickwella and Skipper Upul Tharanga made steady progress but the latter was a bit shaky as right-arm pacie Bhuvneshwar Kumar made the breakthrough in his second over with the wicket of Tharanga who was able to make a contribution of only five runs with Sri Lanka on 23. Dickwella and Angelo Mathews added another 23 runs for the second wicket before Dickwella fell victim to rightarm pacie Jasprit Bumrah having made 17 in 14 balls.

Sri Lanka posted their first 50 runs in 31 balls which was in the sixth over and looked to end with a challenging score but Mathews followed next having added 19 runs with Dilshan Munaweera.

At the halfway stage of the innings they were well placed at 90 for three as Munaweera and Ashan Priyanjan had little threat from the Indian bowlers and in the process Munaweera went on to make his maiden T20 half century.

But Munaweera did not last long and after adding three more runs to his score, he misread a short delivery from left-arm spinner Kuldeep Yadav and was clean bowled having cracked a quick-fire 53 off 29 balls that included five boundaries and four sixes.

Later, spinner Yuzvendra Chahal dealt a double blow claiming two wickets in one over as Sri Lanka fell back with the score reading 113 for six in the 14th over.

A brief partnership of 21 runs for the seventh wicket between Ashan Priyanjan and Seekkuge Prasanna gave some life for the Lanakns.

This was followed by an unbeaten 36 runs for the eighth wicket between Priyanjan (who made a run a ball 40) and Isuru Udana enabled them to end with a score of 170.