195/2 is the highest total of the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium scored by the home team India in 2018 against the West Indies team. Sri Lanka will play their first-ever T20I match at this venue. In the last T20I series between India and Sri Lanka, the Sri Lanka team won that series by winning two T20I matches. From 2009 to 2021 a total of 22 Twenty/20 matches has been played between these two teams. India won 14 of them and Sri Lanka got 7 victories.
ICC Rankings Test, ODI & T20I
The home team India will be in a lot of confidence because they have recently beaten the West Indies team. In the ODI series by 3-0 in the T20I’s again 3-0. From Sri Lankan team performance they just arrived in India, coming from Australia with five T20I’s they have played there. Sri Lanka lost four of them but in the last T20I match Sri Lanka won. So they also carry some momentum with them and also a bit of confidence. Because the Asian pitches are more friendly for both teams.
India vs Sri Lanka 1st T20I Highlights today, Thursday 24-2-2022 – 1st T20I (N), Sri Lanka tour of India from Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow.
Form guide
Last five completed T20Is; the most recent first
India: WWWWW
Sri Lanka: WLLLL
From the Australian tour, P Nissanka was the most runs scorer of the five T20I series with 184 runs. MD Shanaka scored 116 and BKG Mendis scored 100 runs in three innings. PVD Chameera took seven wickets, PWH de Silva took five, and M Theekshana also took five wickets. From the India vs West Indies three T20I series, SA Yadav was the top runs scorer from the Indian team with 107 runs. VR Iyer scored 92 and Ishan Kishan 71. HV Patel took five wickets, Ravi Bishnoi took three and DL Chahar also took three wickets.
So it looks like the Indian top-best batsmen are not in the form like Kohli, Sharma, RR Pant. Also, the Indian bowling performance was not the best according to the Stats of their last three T20Is. Avesh Khan played one match took zero wickets. YS Chahal took two wickets in two matches like B Kumar. So here is a chance for Sri Lanka to give a good performance against India to prove their young talent.
Sri Lanka have won the toss and opted to bowl.
“We want to back our strength,” says Shanaka. “It was a tough tour of Australia, but we could have won a few more games. Dinesh Chandimal is in for Kusal Mendis and Jeffrey Vandersay replaces Maheesh Theekshana.”
“We were looking to chase as well because we are not sure about pitches in India these days,” says Rohit. “The pitch played pretty well when we last played here, against West Indies, three-four years ago. We just want to keep ticking those boxes. But it will be a big challenge, lots of new faces. We have got six changes from the last game. Samson, Bumrah, Bhuvi, Chahal, Jadeja, and Hooda come in. Ruturaj was initially supposed to play but he has got some wrist issue. So he is not available for this game.”
India team: 1 Ishan Kishan, 2 Rohit Sharma, 3 Shreyas Iyer, 4 Sanju Samson, 5 Deepak Hooda, 6 Venkatesh Iyer, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Harshal Patel, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal.
Sri Lanka team: 1 Pathum Nissanka, 2 Kamil Mishara, 3 Charith Asalanka, 4 Janith Liyanage, 5 Dinesh Chandimal (wk), 6 Dasun Shanaka (capt), 7 Chamika Karunaratne, 8 Dushmantha Chameera, 9 Jeffrey Vandersay, 10 Praveen Jayawickrama, 11 Lahiru Kumara.
Match Timings: 13:30 GMT | 19:00 Local
Umpires – Jayaraman Madanagopal, Virender Sharma
TV Umpires – Anil Chaudhary
Match Referee – Javagal Srinath
Reserve Umpire – KN Ananthapadmanabhan
Match number – T20I no. 1492
Shreyas Iyer:
My start was slow but it wasn’t easy. But once my eye got in, and once I got a boundary, I thought I would keep going. Ishan too was losing patience, so I told him to take his time and then he again started timing well. It’s a huge ground, especially after playing at Eden Gardens. We had planned to run a lot of twos and eventually our every plan came off. I was trying to stay in present. I thought 180 would be a good total. I just focused on watching the ball closely and tried to time it well. I tried to bribe Bumrah [who was leading the side when Rohit was off for a bit] to give me an over but it didn’t work (laughs).
Post Match Presentation.
Dasun Shanaka:
We were really poor in all three departments. They batted beautifully and read the conditions really well. We are without our main spinners, Wanindu Hasaranga and Maheesh Theekshana, and the new guys are not very experienced. Hopefully, Asalanka carries his form throughout the series.
Rohit Sharma:
When you play a kind of support that we play, these things [dips in form] are bound to happen. I know the ability Ishan has and it was very very pleasing to watch him bat today. He constructed the innings after six overs, which was more pleasing. It was not about coming and hitting the ball, it was also about finding the gaps. [On Jadeja] Very happy with him. We want more from him, that’s why we sent him up the order and you would see more of that in the upcoming games.
He is in good form, especially Test cricket, and we want to use that in limited-overs. We will see if we can promote him up the order going forward. I love playing on big grounds because that’s where you are tested as a batter. In Kolkata, you can just time the ball for a six. We are dropping a few catches, which is not expected at this level. I guess our fielding coach has some work to do. We want to be the best fielding side in Australia.
Ishan Kishan, the Player of the Match:
I got to learn a lot from the last few matches. My intent wasn’t great but here I tried to keep it simple. I think pull is my favorite shot and I was actually waiting for the ball to play that shot. Bigger boundaries are a good thing as we get lots of gaps. My plan was to middle the ball towards midwicket and it went my way.
