India eased past Sri Lanka by seven wickets to confirm their place in the semifinals of the third T20 World Cup for the Blind played here at the Panjim Gymkhana Sports Club. India qualified for the semifinals after finishing on top of the table after the completion of the round-robin matches.
India will face South Africa in the first semifinals while the second semifinals will be played between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to bat. The Indian bowlers were disciplined from the start and gave the Lankan openers a tough time in the middle. Both openers were dismissed by Sunil Ramesh in the 5th over of the innings. Ruwan Wasantha and Damith Sadruwan tried to rebuild the innings but the Indian bowlers bowled tight spells giving the batters very few chances to score.
They lost wickets at regular intervals which restricted their scoring and eventually finished their innings on 137 for the loss of 8 wickets. Ruwan Wasantha scored 40 and had small partnerships with Damith Sadruwan and T.D Sahan Kumara to take Sri Lanka to a respectable score. Sunil Ramesh and Ajay Kumar Reddy took two wickets a piece.
Chasing the target, Indian opener Prakash Jayaramaiah found his touch and was scoring runs at will.
He continued to score freely even after the early dismissal of vice-captain D. Venkateswara Rao. Such was the dominance of Prakash that he stitched together a 71-run partnership for the second wicket with Lalit Meena in which the latter scored just 4 runs. Prakash retired in the 10th over when the score read 112 and India needed just 26 runs to victory. He scored 81 of 44 balls with the help of 17 boundaries. Ajay Kumar Reddy and Sunil Ramesh comfortably finished the game in 11.5 overs.
The semifinals of the tournament will be played tomorrow at the Samprasiddhi Sports Estadio, Bengaluru. The matches will be telecast live on DD Sports. India will play South Africa at 9 AM in the first semifinals and Sri Lanka will be up against Bangladesh in the other semifinals starting at 1 PM.
Brief Scores: Sri Lanka: 137/8 in 20 overs (Ruwan Wasantha 40, Damith Sadruwan 18; Ajay Kumar Reddy 2/18, Sunil Ramesh 2/15) vs India: 139/3 in 11.5 overs (Prakash Jayaramaiah 81, Ajay Kumar Reddy 20*).(ANI)
