Knew spinners would do the job on this wicket: Dhawan

TIL Desk Sports/ Shikhar Dhawan, India’s stand-in skipper for the tour of Sri Lanka, said he had faith in his spinners to pull off a win in the first T20 International against Sri Lanka. India defeated the home team by 38 runs to take 1-0 lead in the three-match series.

“We knew our spinners will do the job on that wicket,” said Dhawan after the match at the post-match presentation.”Bhuvi bowled well, so was KP (Krunal Pandya). Everyone stood up and even Varun [Chakravarthy] too playing his first match did well giving a few runs and got the wicket,” added Dhawan.

Sri Lanka had got off to a good start raising 50 in seven overs while chasing 164. However, even before reaching 50, they had lost two key wickets to spinners Krunal Pandya (1/16 in two overs) and Yuzvendra Chahal (1/19 in four overs).

Leg-spinner Chakravarthy (1/28 in 4 overs) too chipped in. Altogether, the spinners conceded 63 runs in 10 overs and picked three wickets. “I thought we were 10-15 runs short. I feel we played quite well after losing early wickets. It was about one or two boundaries, we knew we could get going,” said Dhawan, who made 46 off 36 balls.