India v Sri Lanka, 2nd T20I: 5 Talking Points
Indian bowlers did not give Sri Lanka a sniff of a win after putting in an excellent displayIn the first T20I, the inexperienced Sri Lankan bowlers surprised everyone with their dominating performance. The Indian batsmen lacked a certain amount of maturity as they failed to be patient on a green top and gave away their wickets easily.MS Dhoni would have been looking for a strong response from his batsmen and get back into the series to level it at his home ground.The batsmen did just that as all the batsmen in the top five crossed scores of 25 helping India to a big score of 196 in 20 overs. Thisara Perera's hat-trick in the 19th over was the major positive from the Sri Lankan bowling innings.Indian bowlers put pressure on the Sri Lankan batsmen from the very first ball and picked wickets at regular intervals and kept it tight to give India a series-levelling win.Here are the major talking points from the second T20I:
#1 Shikhar Dhawan\'s attacking innings
Before the second T20I, Shikhar Dhawan had a top score of 42 in T20Is. However, that changed in the T20I in Ranchi as Dhawan played a very attacking innings and smashed the Sri Lankan bowlers all around the ground to get his maiden T20I fifty.
His 51 off 25 balls set the tone for the Indian innings and allowed the other batsmen to just build on the foundation set by Dhawan. Rohit Sharma, who usually is the enforcer in the powerplay, was only playing second fiddle to what was a brilliant display of attacking cricket by Dhawan.
India will hope for more such starts from Dhawan as India getting off to a flying start could help put on a competitive total or set the tone for a chase.