Dubai, March 9 (IANS) The Indian deaf cricket team has made a superb start in the ongoing Deaf ICC T20 World Cup in Dubai, scoring a hat-trick of wins by defeating Sri Lanka by 1 wicket in the third match. India won the first match as Bangladesh failed to reach the venue in time. They then defeated South Africa in a one-sided clash and overcame Sri Lanka by one wicket for a hat-trick of wins.
India won the first match against Bangladesh, as their rivals couldn’t reach in time due to unavoidable circumstances. The Deaf International Cricket Council committee declared India as the winner of the match.
In the second match against South Africa, India won the toss and decided to bowl first. South Africa scored 137 runs in 20 overs, losing 8 wickets. In the second innings, India scored 139 runs for the loss of two wickets in 14 overs and won the match by 8 wickets.
For the Indian side, Sai Akash scored 50 runs in 35 balls and from the other side. In bowling, Kuldeep Singh claimed 4 wickets by giving away 25 runs in 4 overs.
The Indian deaf cricket team coach, Dev Dutt said, “The Indian team has come into the T20 World Cup with a strategy and perseverance. We started the T20 World Cup in India and the training camp has been organized since then. In this, along with the sport, the performance of the players, fitness and wellness were also taken care of.
“In the first match, India was awarded two points due to the absence of Bangladesh. But the match between India and South Africa was one-sided in which our bowlers performed very well and restricted South Africa to below 140,” the coach said.
“In this match, bowlers, batsmen and fielders performed amazingly well. The match between India and Sri Lanka on Friday was very exciting. There was a brilliant performance by the bowlers who restricted Sri Lanka to a low score. But due to the lack of coordination of the batsmen, this match got a bit stuck in the middle but our team captain Virendra Singh played a captain’s innings and took the match to the end. In the match against Pakistan, we hope we can do the same. We will implement our complete strategy for this match and we have full hope in our team that we will win this match too. Best wishes to team India, play to win, bring glory to India,” said coach Dev Dutt.
–IANS/bsk/