Picture Credit: Twitter
India are taking on Sri Lanka in their second match of the Super 4 stage in what is a must-win game for the Men in Blue. India were invited to bat first by Sri Lanka captain Dasun Shanaka after he won the toss. The Rohit Sharma-led team got off to a shaky start as they lost KL Rahul and Virat Kohli in quick succession. However, captain Rohit continued hammering Sri Lanka bowlers and scored an important half-century.
He got good support from Suryakumar Yadav who scored 34 runs off 29 balls before falling prey to Dasun Shanaka. Hardik Pandya and Rishabh Pant too chipped in with 17 runs each. While India looked in control till Sharma and Yadav were batting, Sri Lanka took control with quick wickets in the end overs. Dasun Shanaka got two important wickets of Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya. He almost got Deepak Hooda as well but the batter luckily survived.
On the fourth ball of the 18th over, Shanaka bowled a bouncer which Hooda tried to uppercut but instead handed a dolly to Maheesh Theekshana at short third man. He started walking off the field and Sri Lanka were celebrating. But then came the twist when the on-field umpires tried to check with the third umpire if the ball was over the shoulders of the batter. And as it turned out, it was a second bouncer of the over and hence it was given a no-ball and Hooda survived.
No balls saves #DeepakHooda #INDvsSL pic.twitter.com/ZKOHpozg4L
— Cricket fan (@Cricket58214082) September 6, 2022
Nevertheless, the batter could not make the most of the second chance he got as Hooda was clean bowled by Dilshan Madushanka in the next over. The batter departed after scoring 3 runs off 4 balls. With so many wickets falling, India could manage to post 173/8 in their 20 overs, thanks to Ashwin who accumulated eight runs off the last two balls of the 20th over.