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India vs Sri Lanka, LIVE Cricket Score, 1st T20I at Guwahati, Latest Updates: Virat Kohli wins the toss and opts to bowl first. Says the wicket is a bit damp and it could get difficult to defend totals here. Preview: The flavour of the year 2020 is predominantly going to be of Twenty 20 cricket, with both Men’s and Women’s World Cups scheduled to take place in Australia. India and Sri Lanka will kick off with the first T20I series of the year. Both sides will look to get things going on a positive note during the three-match series. Two familiar sides will collide against each other but the return of star Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrah is likely to grab the spotlight. Bumrah, who missed India’s home season up till now, is in line to make his first appearance after recovering from the lower back injury that kept him out of action. Virat Kohli-led India will start as heavy favourites against Sri Lanka which are led by Lasith Malinga. However, the young Sri Lankan side that toured Pakistan in October will take immense confidence from the 3-0 clean sweep against No.1-ranked T20I side. Full Team Squads India Team Players: Shikhar Dhawan , Yuzvendra Chahal , Shivam Dube , Shreyas Iyer , Manish Pandey , Rishabh Pant (wk), KL Rahul , Virat Kohli(c) , Ravindra Jadeja , Kuldeep Yadav , Shardul Thakur , Jasprit Bumrah Navdeep Saini , Washington Sundar , Sanju Samson Sri Lanka Team Players: Lasith Malinga (c), Danushka Gunatilleke , Avishka Fernando , Angelo Mathews , Dasun Shanaka , Kusal Perera , Niroshan Dickwella (wk), Dhananjaya de Silva , Isuru Udana , Bhanuka Rajapaksa , Dasan Fernando, Wanidu Raja, Kasun Lahiru Kumara , Kusal Mendis , Lakshan Moonakan.
India vs Sri Lanka, Highlights, 1st T20I at Guwahati, Full Cricket Score: Match abandoned without a ball bowled due to wet pitch
India vs Sri Lanka 1st T20I Live Updates: Virat Kohli wins the toss and opts to bowl first. Says the wicket is a bit damp and it could get difficult to defend totals here.
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Well, that didn’t quite go as planned. What was expected to be a cracker of a contest to mark the beginning of a new year ended on a damp note with the first T20I at Guwahati getting abandoned without a single ball being bowled.
Disappointing is the keyword here since it didn’t even rain that heavily in the city, and as Aakash Chopra noted in the live broadcast, the outfield was ‘bone-dry’ at the time of the second inspection. Despite that, the pitch was wet and the speculation is that of holes in the covers causing this mess. The groundstaff tried taking unique steps to dry the pitch, including the use of hairdryers and steam irons to tackle the situation, but those efforts eventually went in vain.
The teams now move to Indore where the second match of the series takes place in a couple of days, and we’re hoping the players and fans get greeted with clear skies at the Holkar Stadium. Do spare a thought for those who showed up at the Barsapara Stadium, a venue which doesn’t get to host too many international matches to begin with.
It’s already 9.46 pm, which was the cutoff for a five-overs per side contest but no word still from Guwahati.
Bizarre visuals at the stadium. Ground staff using hair-dryers, pressing irons and whatnot to dry the wet patches on the pitch. Nothing seems to work though.
“Outfield is bone dry. We haven’t had a drop of rain for the last one hour. We should’ve had start of play. Perhaps there were a few holes in the covers and some amount of water seeped in. Some amount of negligence. Quite disappointing,” says cricketer-turned-commentator Aakash Chopra.
We are still hopeful.
Meanwhile in Guwahati, the crowd hasn’t lost its enthusiasm.
Just in. The situation just worsened at Barsapara.
Meanwhile on the other side of the equator, England batsmen are making merry on the third day of the second Test against South Africa in Cape Town, stretching their lead past 200 in their second essay with eight wickets in hand.
Follow the live scorecard and ball-by-ball commentary here .
India have won each of their last five T20Is against Sri Lanka at home.
India have won eight of their last nine T20Is against Sri Lanka.
India have won each of the eight international matches that they have played at Holkar Stadium, Indore so far.
So, India are commencing the year 2020 with this three-match T20I series against Sri Lanka. In fact, prior to IPL they are playing 8 T20Is (a five-match series in New Zealand), which the team management will use to find out their best possible combination for this year’s ICC T20 World Cup in Australia and technically, Kohli’s men’s final dress-rehearsal for that mega event starts from today.
In past few days Guwahati has experienced a lot of rainfall. However, the weather cleared up yesterday and tonight the conditions are ideal for a T20 game.
Irfan Pathan brought his international career to an end, making the official announcement at an event in Mumbai on Saturday. Ujwal Singh pays tribute to the former all-rounder who broken into the Sourav Ganguly-led Indian team in the 2003 tour of Australia and went on to dish out many a match-winning performance, including in the 2007 ICC World T20 final.
Read the full piece here .
Fun fact – India haven’t lost a bilateral series against Sri Lanka, in more than 10 years, in any format. No prizes for guessing the favourites here.
Sri Lanka will, however, take heart from the fact that they beat India in an all-important World T20 final in 2014.
Bumrah has said that the four-months injury-induced break was important for him to build on his strength and come back with a hunger for wickets.