Third and final T20: India will face Sri Lanka at Pallekele, Sri Lanka
Having taken the lead in the three-match T20I series against Sri Lanka, Team India is gearing up for the third and final T20 match today at 7 PM IST. The match will be played at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium in Sri Lanka.
In the second T20I, the Men in Blue secured a victory, clinching the series under the new captain, Suryakumar Yadav. With the series already in hand, India now aims to complete a clean sweep by winning the final match and achieving a 3-0 whitewash.
The drizzle that shortened Sunday’s game lingered into the new week, wrapping the hills of Kandy in a soft mist. Team India, embracing the monsoon’s lethargy, cancelled their Monday practice session. For a brief while, they showed the resolve to train, but as the day unfolded in the lush, serene hills, plans were reconsidered and ultimately abandoned. The indecisiveness is probably understandable. A lazy day out was much due for a team that had put up the entertainment act two days in a row over the weekend.
For Sri Lanka, the respite was more of a necessity, a brief escape from the sting of two defeats within 30 hours. As they resume their attempted T20 revival at the same venue on Tuesday, the challenge will be to rally as a unit and secure a win. While the match might be inconsequential to the series outcome, it holds immense significance for a team struggling at the back of recent failures, and more significantly, the manner of those losses.
Despite the eventual margin between the two teams, the contests have not been entirely one-sided. There were instances where both sides were evenly matched, and at times, Sri Lanka even held the upper hand. Yet, they’ve squandered these opportunities, primarily due to middle-order collapses. Sri Lanka’s batting coach emphasized the need for solutions and perhaps some ‘tough decisions’. This game presents a low-stakes opportunity to experiment with new combinations.
India, too, might see merit in tinkering with their playing XI. However, with the dawn of the Suryakumar Yadav-Gautam Gambhir era, the question arises: is the focus on immediate results or the long-term process? As the drizzle continues to paint the island in shades of green and grey, both teams face an interesting juncture – one seeking redemption and a new direction, while the other is just extending its merry run in a different island from the islands of Caribbean to Sri Lanka en route Zimbabwe.
