'I'm looking to make my place stronger for T20 World Cup,' says Shikhar Dhawan

Shikhar Dhawan, skipper of the Indian team travelling to Sri Lanka, said that he is looking forward to "perform" and make his "place stronger" for the T20 World Cup, which is scheduled to take place from October 17 to November 14 this year in the UAE. While, ahead of the T20I series against Sri Lanka Dhawan had opened up about international matches and their impact. "Any international match has its own impact, and whenever you perform internationally it makes a huge impact," said Dhawan ahead of the first T20 match against that India won comfortably by 38 runs on Sunday. 

"I'm really looking forward to perform over here and make my place stronger for World Cup contendership. Then we’ll see how it goes in the future,” said Dhawan during a virtual presser. 

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As far as the T20I is considered, second-string India won the first match of a three-match series against Sri Lanka on July 25 (Sunday). Pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar took four wickets (4-22) and was elated after winning the Player of the Match award. He said, "I executed what I wanted to and I am satisfied. I played ODIs after a few months but execution is really important for me. The wicket was difficult to bat against the spinners."

In the match, India was sent to bat first and got off to a shaky start with debutant Prithvi Shaw dismissed on the first ball and Sanju Samson out for 27. However, Suryakumar Yadav proved valuable with bat scored a half-century. Dhawan scored 46 and helped the side to set a decent target of 165.

While chasing the target, the Sri Lankan team lacked intent and failed to make partnerships as they kept losing their wickets at regular intervals. 

The other two matches are scheduled to be played on July 27 (Tuesday) followed by the third on (July 29) Thursday.