Wednesday's third T20 World Cup for the Blind match at the Panjim Gymkhana Sports Club in Goa saw India easily defeat Sri Lanka by 7 wickets to secure their place in the quarterfinals.
After the round robin matches were over, India took first place in the table and earned a spot in the semifinals. In the first semifinal, South Africa will play the hosts, and Sri Lanka and Bangladesh will square off in the second semifinal.
After winning the toss, Sri Lanka decided to bat. The Indian bowlers were organised right away and struggled to contain the Lankan openers in the middle. Sunil Ramesh removed both of the openers in the fifth over of the innings.
Damith Sadruwan and Ruwan Wasantha attempted to rebuild the innings, but the Indian bowlers bowled tight spells that gave the hitters very few opportunities to score. They suffered frequent wicket losses, which limited their ability to score, and they eventually ended their innings on 137 for the loss of 8 wickets.
Ruwan Wasantha led Sri Lanka to a good result with his 40 points and little partnerships with Damith Sadruwan and T.D. Sahan Kumara. Ajay Kumar Reddy and Sunil Ramesh both claimed two wickets.
Indian opener Prakash Jayaramaiah rediscovered his rhythm while attempting to reach the objective and began to score runs at free. Even after vice-captain D. Venkateswara Rao's early ejection, he kept on scoring freely. Due to Prakash's dominance, Lalit Meena only contributed 4 runs to a second-wicket partnership between the two of them for a total of 71 runs.
When India needed just 26 runs to win and the score read 112, Prakash retired in the 10th over. With the help of 17 boundaries, he scored 81 runs off of 44 balls. In just 11.5 overs, Ajay Kumar Reddy and Sunil Ramesh comfortably wrapped up the game.
The semifinals of the tournament will be played on Thursday at the Samprasiddhi Sports Estadio, Bengaluru. India will play South Africa in the first semifinals and Sri Lanka will be up against Bangladesh in the other semifinals.
Brief Scores:
Sri Lanka - 137/8 in 20 overs (Ruwan Wasantha 40, Damith Sadruwan 18; Ajay Kumar Reddy 2/18, Sunil Ramesh 2/15) lost to India - 139/3 in 11.5 overs (Prakash Jayaramaiah 81, Ajay Kumar Reddy 20 not out) by 7 wickets.