Jasprit Bumrah was back to his brilliant best against Sri Lanka in the second T20I of the three match series on Saturday, at Dharamshala. Bumrah rewarded captain Rohit Sharma’s call to bowl first with an exceptional opening spell making full use of the conditions that supported seam and swing in the first overs.
Bumrah swung it both ways to the opening pair of Pathum Nissanka and Danushka Gunathilaka to make life difficult for them. Bumrah conceded just 5 runs from his first two overs. As India clamped down into the powerplay, Sri Lanka tried to find relief after surviving the first four overs, attacking the trio of Harshal Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravindra Jadeja.
While Chahal bowled short and wide on several occasions, Harshal, still adjusting with his new powerplay role, was inconsistent in his lengths. A see-sawing innings in terms of momentum, India struck back with back to back wickets of Gunathilaka, Charith Asalanka and Kamil Mishara to turn the momentum around between 9th and 11th over.
As wickets kept falling, Nissanka on the other end, kept on progressing in his classical fashion, increasing his strike rate multifold while growing into the game.
It was once again another Bumrah over that cut Sri Lanka’s momentum short in the 15th over, bringing his full repertoire of slower balls and crushing yorkers. He removed Dinesh Chandimal with a clever off cutter and effected Sri Lanka’s fourth dismissal in the game.
But once again, Nissanka - who had been the bedrock for most of Sri Lanka’s runs, hit back with two big overs of Harshal Patel and Jasprit Bumrah - milking 33 runs of the 17th and 18th over alongside Dasun Shanaka.
Despite getting hit for 14 in his last over, Bumrah completed his spell with figures of 4-0-24-1 in the cold evening at Dharamshala.
The last two overs bore more carnage from Sri Lanka, Dasun Shanaka in particular who helped the visitors score 39 from the last two overs, blasting Harshal Patel and Bhuvneshwar Kumar all over the park.
By the end of SL had scored 183/5 in their 20 overs with Shanaka remaining not out at 47 off just 19 balls. Nissanka still top scored the innings hitting 75 off just 53 balls.
Barring Bumrah, India only fired in stages of the game, but entirely lost the plot in the final five overs. Harshal Patel once again conceded over 50 runs from his four overs while Jadeja and Bhuvi were hit for 37 and 36 off their four respectively.