This has been a dominating display from the Indians and they’ll be quite chuffed with the score they’ve on the board. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill started briskly and added 74 for the opening wicket inside the batting PP. Both fell off consecutive balls, but the stage had been set for a Suryakumar Yadav special, the newly named captain didn’t disappoint, making a 26-ball 58, Rishabh Pant was pretty scratchy, but he stayed on and made a 33-ball 49 – Matheesha Pathirana dragged his team back in the later overs with a four wicket burst, but the Indians had by then got a big score on the board. The Sri Lankan batters are coming on the back of a high-scoring LPL, but this will be an all-new challenge awaiting them.
India take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series with a pretty big win. It was set-up by their top-four batters who powered them to a total of 213. The World Champions were the firm favourites at the halfway stage but the Sri Lankan batters did put up a fight. Chasing a big total, Nissanka got off the blocks quickly but Mendis overtook him after the powerplay as the Sri Lankan openers scored at close to 10 RPO. Arshdeep broke the 84-run opening stand in the ninth over as he dismissed Mendis with a knuckle ball. That didn’t hamper Nissanka as he notched up a fifty and kept finding boundaries. He was involved in another half-century partnership with Perera and Sri Lanka needed 74 runs off the last six overs with nine wickets in hand. That’s when Axar put a spoke in the hosts’ wheel with a double-wicket over. Sri Lanka couldn’t recover from that as they lost wickets in a heap (lost their last nine wickets for 30 runs).
Shubman Gill: Not really (panicked). We spoke about having good communication and we knew we just needed one wicket (when SL were 140/1). It is great batting with him (Jaiswal) and we complement each other. Our style is different, our plan is simple – assess the conditions and then take on the bowlers. When you are opening the innings, see how the pitch is behaving and play accordingly (that’s the plan).
Charith Asalanka: We were not up to the mark in the powerplay, but in the latter part, we came back pretty strong. Some stage, we thought they might get to 240, we did well. Little disappointed with the way the middle-order batted, we could have done better. (On balance of his side) It’s an experiment, this is the way we should go in the future.
Suryakumar Yadav | Player of the Match: They were playing a good brand of cricket from ball one. They were keeping the tempo, credit goes to them. We know how the wicket plays in the night. We were fortunate that there was no dew. The way we played in the World Cup, that remedied us that the game was still too far. (Left-right combination to be persisted?) Whatever works for the team, we’ll take the call.
A 43-run win to kickoff the new era under SKY & Gambhir. The Indian bowlers were put under some pressure by the Lankan top-order but they came back strongly in latter part of the innings. Hasaranga was economical and Pathirana picked four wickets but the hosts were very sloppy in the field. Can they come up with a better performance and level the series? Tune in tomorrow for the second T20I – same time and same venue.