IND vs SL 3rd T20I Preview: India lagging on many fronts, Lanka eye history

Sri Lanka have not won any series in India in any of the three formats. Now they have got an opportunity to etch their names in history by winning this series

The Sri Lankan team stands on the brink of a historic feat if they manage to beat India in the Rajkot T20I. In the third match, the Lankan unit will be more confident as they beat India by 16 runs in the second one after having lost the first one narrowly by two runs. 

Sri Lanka haven't won even a single series in any of the three formats in India. They have won only four series against India in total. It was in 2008 when the Lankan lions won the last and only Test series against India. It was played in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka have twice won the ODI series against India none of them have come in this millennium. The two events occurred in 1993 and 1997. 

When it comes to the shortest format, in 2009, Sri Lanka came close to winning its first-ever series in India after they won the Nagpur T20I by scoring more than 200 runs in the first innings. But in Mohali, they lost and the two-match series ended level at 1-1. The only time Sri Lanka won a T20I bilateral series against India, was in 2021 and the series took place in Sri Lanka, where the hosts won 2-1. 

Thus, this team led by Dasun Shanaka is eyeing a feat which the Sri Lankan teams led by greats like Arjuna Ranatunga, Arvinda de Silva, Mahela Jayawardena and Kumar Sangakkara could not achieve. 

India are lagging on all three fronts of the game. The batting has been poor with none of the batters apart from Deepak Hooda (1st match) and Suryakumar Yadav (2nd match) finding form. Axar Patel has been a saviour with both bat and ball. Shivam Mavi did shine in the first game with 4/22, but he was all over the place in the second. Arshdeep Singh would like to erase the second T20I from his memory as he bowled five no-balls, three of which were consecutive. 

Thus, the Indian team has not been able to click on all fronts in the same game, thereby causing difficult situations. Though the new Indian skipper Pandya wants to put his team under pressure situations to achieve better results, he too would not like to become the first Indian skipper to lose a series to a Sri Lankan team in India.