Pathan brothers, Yusuf and Irfan, steered India to a thrilling three-wicket win in the lone Twenty20 match against Sri Lanka in Colombo last evening. The Indians, despite losing wickets at crucial stages, hold their nerves to live up to their tag of T20 world champions.
The match offered all elements of excitement as it was dragged to the very last over but both Yusuf Pathan (22 off 10 balls) and Irfan Pathan (33 off 16) with an innings of their lifetime bailed out India to the glory.
Chasing a target of 172 to win, India lost both of its openers Virendra Sehwag (1) and Gautam Gambhir (13) in the first two overs, though Yuvraj Singh (32 off 21) took the scoreboard to 81 with Suresh Raina (35 off 27) before falling to Mubarak. Yuvraj was declared glamorous cricketer of the series for his scintillating performance both in the ODI and T20 matches.
Dhoni (13), Rohit Sharma (4) and Ravindra Jadeja (5) couldn’t contribute much to the score, as a result the Indian scoring rate came to the shoulders of Pathan duo who had to score almost 10-run per over in the last three. Both had already shared three wickets in their bowling spells and hence their all-round show helps India to reach the target with four balls to spare.
Earlier, Sri Lanka after winning the toss elected to bat first, and a flying start by captain Dilshan and Sanath Jayasuriya made sure the prospect of a good total. Chamara Silva too scored 21 in 18 balls to set a target of 172 runs for four.
However, the Lankans lost the plot after a couple of expensive overs; one came from legspinner Malinga Bandara who gave away two sixes and a four. Then it was the second last over in which Irfan Pathan hit Dilhara Fernando for two powerful shots, one six and one boundary, to bring the target down to just 5 runs in the last one over.
India retuned home with a winning note. It had already won the five-match one-day series 4-1 and is now on the third place of the latest ODI rankings.
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