Sri Lanka has easily defeated India in the first of the two T20Is played in Nagpur. With this loss, the Indians could not make a winning start to their T20Is on this ground at Jamtha, where they had earlier won their first Test match and first ODI as well. The second game of the series will be played at Mohali on Saturday and the Indians will look to come back into the series with a resounding win before going into the ODIs.
The Indians decided to field first after MS Dhoni won the toss, assuming that the dew on the ground would make it difficult for the bowling side alter. However, in a 20-overs game, the dew is not such a problem as it would be in a fifty overs match.
Sanath Jayasuriya and T.Dilshan struggled to lay bat to ball in the first four overs of the game, as Ishant Sharma and debutant Ashish Nehra bowled quick enough to make life difficult for the Lankans. However, once Nehra went for five fours in the fifth over of the innings, the floodgates opened. It did not help that Jayasuriya was dropped twice, and by the time he was out, the Sri Lankans had had the momentum going for them, something that was sustained by Kumar Sangakkara’s two successive boundaries to open his account.
Sangakkara looked like he had taken off from the previous game that he played at Brabourne. Even there, his century, had been one which consisted of a reasonable shots to the fence, packed with aggression, but as the test match demanded, full of consistent defence. Here, he did not have to defend, and he did nothing of that sort; going after the Indian bowling in a hurry. Pragyan Ojha was welcomed into the attack with two boundaries and a huge six, as Sangakkara brought up his half century off 21 balls.
Dilshan may not have lasted too long or played one of his customary innings – probably rattled by both, the bowling earlier on and his captain’s assault, but there was a new batsman who took on the Indian bowling in the form of Chamara Kapugedera. Kapugedera also plays for the same franchise that MS Dhoni captains – Chennai Super Kings – and he would have made Dhoni think twice about not picking him up for the next IPL!
In the end, 215 was a total 25-30 runs more than what could have been chased on the ground. Gautam Gambhir did match Sangakkara stroke for stroke, but without much support down the order, it became progressively difficult for the Indians and they crashed to an easy defeat in the end.
