CHAHAR’S ALL ROUND SHOW HELPS INDIA SEAL SERIES VS LANKA

MUMBAI: When a rampaging Suryakumar Yadav fell on 53 with India 115 runs away and only four wickets standing, Sri Lanka would have thought this would be the night to end their unremarkable record of not having beaten India at home for nine years.

But such is the depth in what is India’s reserve outfit that if their top order won’t, the lower order will. Bowling all-rounder Deepak Chahar coming in at No.8 struck many lusty blows to score an unbeaten 69 in a fine finishing act that would have made his CSK skipper MS Dhoni proud.

He combined with Bhuvneshwar Kumar (19*) for a matchwinning 84-run eight-wicket partnership to help India seal the three-match ODI series 2-0.

It was business as usual in the first two overs in India’s chase of 276. Prithvi Shaw seemed to be continuing on his boundary spree with three eye-catching drives in the first over. Skipper Shikhar Dhawan matched him with cuts and pulls—three fours for him in the next over.

That’s when the Sri Lankan think tank, alert to the occasion, introduced spin early to challenge Shaw. He soon fell, second match in a row, this time to a Wanindu Hasaranga googly. From that moment on the script began to go awry for India.

Ishan Kishan, who debuted with a stroke-filled 50 in the first ODI, this time found a mistimed cut crashing into the stumps early. Hasaranga got Dhawan (29) lbw in the 12th over. And when a set Manish Pandey got out on 37, run out by the bowler on his follow through at the nonstriker’s end, it seemed Sri Lanka had luck on their side.