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After facing turbulent times in international cricket in recent times, Sri Lanka now have a great chance of emerging victorious in a T20I series for the first time since October 2019. Sri Lanka's last series victory in the T20 format came in 2019 during their tour of Pakistan. The Lankans white-washed hosts Pakistan 3-0 in that series.
Since then, they have lost five consecutive series and slipped to ninth position in the ICC T20I team rankings. Due to this, the 2014 T20 World champions will have to play the qualifiers in Oman to earn the opportunity to play in the main event of the upcoming T20 World Cup.
A series win against India at this juncture will boost their confidence levels going into the Qualifiers. Sri Lanka will now face India in the third and final T20I of the tour tonight at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. They will look to win the encounter and bag their first T20I series in more than 20 months.
Sri Lanka have never won a T20I series against India until now
The Sri Lankan team is yet to beat India in a bilateral T20I series. So far, both teams have contested seven T20I series against each other, and India managed to emerge victorious in six of them, while one series ended in a draw.
The first-ever T20I series between the teams happened in 2009. India won the only match of the series and began their dominant streak against Sri Lanka in the shortest format.
The Lankans then drew the series 1-1 in December 2009, their best series result against India in the format so far. India then went on to registered series wins against Sri Lanka in 2012, 2016, 2017, and 2020.
So far, Sri Lanka has squared off against India in 21 T20 internationals. They managed to win just six games and ended up losing 14 games. Today's game presents the best opportunity for Sri Lanka to win their first bilateral series against India in the T20 format as the visitors' playing XI lacks balance.
Due to the Covid-19 outbreak in its camp, India is left with only five batsmen in its squad as the rest of them are in isolation. Dasun Shanaka and Micky Arthur will be devising plans accordingly to restrict the Indian batting line-up and take advantage of their limitations.
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