Nidahas Trophy, India vs Sri Lanka, 4th T20I: Rohit eyes return to form as India seek 2nd win

India’s stand-in captain Rohit Sharma will look to find his form again as India aim to continue their momentum in the 4th T20I of the Nidahas Trophy against Sri Lanka at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on Monday.

India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have all played two matches and have won a match each leaving the T20I tri-series wide open.

India and Sri Lanka battled in the opener of the tournament where Kusal Perera starred to guide Sri Lanka to a five-wicket win. India then played Bangladesh, where they put up a much better over-all show and defeated them by six wickets.

Without the seasoned campaigners Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah, the seniors of the team captain Rohit, Shikhar Dhawan, Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik have the onus on them.

While Dhawan has come out with flying colours in the two matches, Rohit’s form is a point of worry for India. With scores of 0 and 17 in the first two matches, Rohit will want to make amends and lead the Men-in-Blue by example.

Having defeated India once, Sri Lanka will be confident. However, they will also be looking to make amends after losing to Bangladesh by five wickets in a high-scoring affair on Saturday night. The hosts had put 214/6 on the board but failed to defend the big total, as Mushfiqur Rahim (72 not out) tore the home bowlers apart.

For this reason, India have to be wary of the Sri Lankans. But this side has shown that it has the strength to go out and deliver and will be eager to continue the good work they did against Bangladesh.

With Dhawan scoring the bulk of the runs at the tops, India will depend on Manish Pandey in the middle order, who posted 37 and 27 not out in the two matches.

Suresh Raina will also aim to have a big score after getting 28 in the last match. Young wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant, who has not been impressive so far with scores of 7 and 23, will also look to make amends.

As for the bowlers, medium pacers Jaydev Unadkat, Shardul Thakur and Vijay Shankar helped India restrict Bangladesh to 139/8 in the last match after being wasteful in the first match.

Spinners Yuzvender Chahal and Washington Sundar will again be key in the middle overs.

In the other camp, Sri Lanka will depend on Danushka Gunathilaka, Kusal Perera and Kusal Mendis to score briskly at the top of the batting order, especially with captain Dinesh Chandimal banned for two matches with slow over-rate.

In their defeat to Bangladesh, all of the bowlers, barring Nuwan Pradeep, bowled with indiscipline, throwing full-tosses and easy deliveries at important moments and were made to pay for it.

Pradeep will need Thisara Perera and Dushmantha Chameera to step up, along with spinners Akila Dhananjay and Jeevan Mendis.