In front of a full-house crowd at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh Stadium in Raipur, former India stars Yuvraj Singh and Yusuf Pathan lit up the skies with their blistering sixes as they helped India Legends win the inaugural edition of the Road Safety World Series T20 tournament. The Indian Legends side defeated Sri Lanka Legends by 14 runs in the final game.
While Yuvraj hit four fours and four sixes in his 41 balls 60 run innings, Yusuf seemed to be dealing only in boundaries hitting five sixes and four fours in his 36 balls 62. He came good with the ball too, picking up two crucial wickets of dangermen Tillakaratne Dilshan and Sanath Jayasuriya. It was this all-round performance of his that earned him the Man of the Match award in the final.
The target of 182 set up by India Legends was never going to be an easy chase, even in the dew for Sri Lanka. It turned out to be difficult than expected as the team lost their skipper Dilshan very cheaply. Jayasuriya looked a vintage version of himself till the time he was on the crease, scoring 43 off 35 with the help of five fours and a six. Chamara Silva went cheaply. But what hurt Sri Lanka more was the departure of Upul Tharanga, another man in form departing without performing much. He was removed by Irfan Pathan.
In the end, it came down to lesser-known players like Chinthaka Jayasinghe and Kaushalya Weeraratne. They did amazingly well, recovering Sri Lanka legends innings, taking it from 91-4 to 155 in a span of just 35 balls. The Legends from the island nation came in touching distance of the victory after hitting R Vinay Kumar for 19 runs in the 18th over.
Only 30 was needed from the last two when Manpreet Gony took the ball and removed Weeraratne, changing the course of the game. Weeraratne scored 38 off 15 with the help of three sixes and three fours. Jayasinghe, however, stood there and hit a six off the very first ball of the last over, bringing the equation down to 18 from five balls.
Unfortunately, he got off the strike the very next ball and Nuwan Kulasekara missed the third ball, making 18 from three, When Jayasinghe got back the strike the target became almost impossible to achieve, with 16 required off the last two. He got run out in an attempt to retain the strike for the last ball.
Earlier in the day, India Legends were asked to bat by Sri Lanka Legends. After the fall of Virender Sehwag and Subrimanium Badrinath cheaply, the Legends side rode on some brilliantly nostalgic drives from Sachin Tendulkar and then the explosive batting from Yuvraj and Pathan to get to 181 in their allotted 20 overs.