SL vs IND: Wanindu Hasaranga upholds Spirit of the Game after Rahul Chahar’s aggressive celebration

Sri Lanka, on Wednesday, July 28, drew level in their three-match T20I series against India. The Islanders won by four wickets in the second T20I at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. Apart from some jaw-dropping action on the field, an incident between India’s Rahul Chahar and Sri Lanka’s Wanindu Hasaranga also caught the limelight in the penultimate game.

In the last ball of the 15th over, Chahar dismissed Hasaranga to reduce the hosts to 94/5 with Lanka needing 39 runs off 30 balls. The Indian spinner churned out a wide loopy leg-break and Hasaranga tried to play the ball through the off-side. However, the batter could only manage a thickish outside edge. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, standing at point, took a rather simple catch.

Wanindu Hasaranga turns up with a heart-winning response

Thereafter, Chahar turned aggressive and threw some rough expressions at Hasaranga. But the latter didn’t lose his calm and rather, upheld the Spirit of the Game. While returning to the pavilion, Hasaranga tapped on his bat and applauded back to Chahar’s reaction.

After Lanka’s win with two balls left, Dasun Shanaka, their skipper, lauded Dhananjaya de Silva and Hasaranga for holding the innings together. Even as Hasaranga scored 15, De Silva stayed unbeaten on a match-winning 40 off 34 balls with the help of one four and one six.

“I thought if we can keep them under a low score, we can chase it. The strategy was to go hard in the first six overs. Then I went into the middle but couldn’t do much. But DDS and Hasaranga did well in the middle overs,” Shanaka was quoted as saying.

In the meantime, Indian skipper Shikhar Dhawan was clear cut in saying that his team was 10-15 runs short of where they would have wanted to be. He also lauded his boys for taking the match right down to the wire.

“The surface turned and was a stopping a bit. We knew we were one batter short. We knew we had to construct our innings smartly. We were 10-15 runs short. That would have made the difference. I am proud of the boys. Never say die attitude is amazing. Hats off to the boys for taking it into the last over,” Dhawan said after the match.