India beat Sri Lanka by 7 wickets in lone T20I, complete historic 9-0 tour whitewash

Courtesy: Reuters

New Delhi: Skipper Virat Kohli once again led from the front as India completed a historic 9-0 whitewash of Sri Lanka with a seven-wicket win in the one-off Twenty20 International match at Colombo's R Premadasa Stadium on Wednesday. (AS IT HAPPENED | SCORECARD)

Kohli, who hit his 30th ODI hundred in the fifth and final ODI match last Sunday, came after the fall of opener Rohit Sharma in their chase of 171-run target. The Indian opener perished early in the innings, after scoring just nine runs in the third over with Lasith Malinga getting the prize wicket of his Mumbai Indians captain.

The 28-year-old, with Lokesh Rahul, thwarted the Lankan bowlers before the second opener departed in the sixth over. Seekkuge Prasanna took th wicket, thanks to a flying catch by Dasun Shanaka at cover.

But that was all the joy Lankans have had on a day India were chasing an improbable target of whitewashing an oponent across all three formats.

The arrival of Manish Pandey allowed Kohli to adopt an attacking play. The dou then added 119 runs for the third wicket as India wrapped the tour with a seven-wicket win in front of packed Premadasa Stadium crowd, who turned up to witness a revival of Lankan fortunes.

Unlike the Test and ODI, Lanka have a favourable win-loss record in the shortest format of the game. But against an rampaging India side, that dream failed to see the light of the day.

India have already completed series whitewashes in the Test, 3-0 and ODI, 5-0 before today's match.

Kohli hit 82 off 54 balls with the help of seven fours and a six. In the process, he also breached the 1000-run mark while chasing in T20Is. Pandey, who played a pivotal role in the last match, also played a brilliant unbeaten knock of 51 off 36 with the help of four fours and a six.

But Kohli's departure in 18th over to Isuru Udana with India still needing 10 runs off nine balls, allowed former captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni to join Pandey. But the 'finisher' failed to hit the winning runs, as he gave Pandey a chance to register his maiden T20I fifty.

Pandey hit the second ball of the penultimate over, bowled by Thisara Perera, for a four. With that pandey also brought up his maiden fifty.

Earlier in the day, debutant Dilshan Munaweera smashed his maiden half-century while debutant Ashan Priyanjan played a useful hand to guide Lanka to a respectable 170 for seven.

Playing his 10th T20 match, Munaweera scored a quick-fire 53 off 29 balls with the help of five boundaries and as many as four hits over the fence.

He was ably supported by Priyanjan, who scored a run-a-ball unbeaten 40 during which he hit one boundary and two sixes to take Lanka to the fighting total.

For India, young leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal was the pick of the bowlers with figures of three for 43 from his four overs, while chinaman Kuldeep Yadav scalped two for 20.

This was after the match started a 55 minutes delay because of wet outfield following rains.

Put into bat, Sri Lanka made a hectic start with Niroshan Dickwella (17) attacking Jasprit Bumrah (1/38) at the start.

It forced India skipper Virat Kohli to introduce spin early into the powerplay in the form of Chahal.

Skipper Upul Tharanga (5) played on a Bhuvneshwar Kumar (1/36) delivery in the third over.

Munaweera then went into an attacking mode as he carted Chahal for two sixes in the next over.

Dickwella added 23 runs with both Tharanga and Munaweera, as Sri Lanka reached 50 for two in the sixth over.

Munaweera kept up the assault on Indian bowlers and hit 5 fours as well as four sixes.

He reached his fifty off 26 balls, the second quickest for a Sri Lankan batsman in this format against India, after Kumar Sangakkara who took only 21 balls.

Using their five-pronged attack, inclusive of three spinners, India rotated the bowlers around.

The turning point perhaps came when Mahendra Singh Dhoni pulled off a trademark quick stumping to dismiss Angelo Mathews (7) off Chahal in the seventh over.

It denied Sri Lanka an aggressive middle-order partnership.

Kuldeep Yadav (2/20) and Axar Patel (0/29) then put on the brakes after the powerplay overs as Munaweera and Thisara Perera (11) added 37 runs off 29 balls.

Munaweera was bowled off Yadav in the 12th over, the bat escaping from his hand as he looked to force a pull and the ball hit the stumps instead.

Two overs later, Chahal returned to strike a double blow as he bowled Perera and then trapped Dasun Shanaka (0) LBW in the space of four balls.

Sri Lanka were crawling by then and were reduced to 134 for seven in the 17th over as Seekkuge Prasanna (11) was caught in the deep off Yadav.

Priyanjan then played a blinder of a knock to help Sri Lanka post a competitive target.

He was watchful at first as Sri Lanka didn't want to lose any more wickets and put on 36 runs off 20 balls with Isuru Udana (19 off 10 balls) for the eighth wicket.

Towards the end, the duo played some unorthodox shots to push Sri Lanka forward.

(With PTI inputs)