Following comfortable victories in the first two T20Is, Team India clinched a thrilling victory in the Super Over to clean-sweep the series against Sri Lanka at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium on Tuesday.
Needing 9 runs to win off 12 deliveries, Yadav did the unthinkable, as he handed over the ball to Rinku Singh in the penultimate over and bowled the final over himself to take the match to the Super Over.
The victory marked the beginning of a new era for the T20 World Champions under their new head coach Gautam Gambhir and newly deployed captain Suryakumar Yadav.
Gambhir cut out an extremely delighted figure in the dressing room although he, as usual, chose to keep his emotions in control. The 2011 World Cup winner congratulated the captain for guiding his troops well under pressure and showing the fighting spirit on each delivery.
𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 💙
Head Coach Gautam Gambhir 🤝 Hardik Pandya address the dressing room as the action now shifts to the ODIs in Colombo #TeamIndia | #SLvIND | @GautamGambhir | @hardikpandya7 pic.twitter.com/PFrTEVzdvd
— BCCI (@BCCI) July 31, 2024
“Guys, congratulations on a great series win. Congratulations to Surya as well, outstanding captaincy and with the bat as well. I asked for something before the start of the game and you absolutely delivered it. “This is what happens when you keep fighting, (and when) you don’t give up,” Gambhir told the team in a dressing room chat shared by BCCI on ‘X’.
“These kind of games happen and the only way these key games can happen (in favour) is when we keep fighting on every delivery and for every run and this was the example.”
However, Gambhir re-emphasized the need to work on individual skills continuously to execute the plans better on tricky tracks like the Pallekele.
“We keep getting better, we keep improving our skills as well because we still need to get better on playing on wickets like these, because we might end up getting these kind of wickets (in future).
“So we should first assess the situation and conditions really quickly and what is the par score as well,” he said.
Team India’s next assignment will be the three-match ODI series against Sri Lanka, starting from Friday, where senior players like captain Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli will return to the fold.
