Picture : BCCI/ Twitter
Opener Shikhar Dhawan, in his first match as captain, led from the front in style as India cruised to a seven-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in the first One-Day International, at the Premadasa stadium in Colombo. Ishan Kishan celebrated his 23rd birthday with a blazing half-century on debut, Sri Lanka Had posted 262/9 in their 50 overs .
In reply, India’s batting proved too good as they overhauled the target in just 36.4 overs. Prithvi Shaw hammering nine boundaries in a 24-ball 43. That set the pace for Kishan to come in and hit a six off the first delivery he faced, and followed it up with a square driven boundary. The Mumbai Indians batsman then used his bat like a sledgehammer, scoring the second fastest ODI fifty on debut — off 33 balls .
Skipper Dhawan anchored the innings superbly with an unbeaten 86 off 95 balls. Dhawan played second fiddle to Shaw in an opening stand of 58 in 5.3 overs and during a second-wicket partnership of 85 with Kishan in only 12.2 overs.
Earlier, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal produced economical spells before Chamika Karunaratane’s late blitz powered Sri Lanka to 262 for 9.
Kuldeep (2-48 off 9 overs) and Chahal (2-52 off 10), did not run through the Sri Lankan batting, but bowled enough wicket-taking deliveries to choke the run-flow.
Krunal Pandya’s (1-26 off 10 overs) nagging accuracy made run-scoring an arduous task in the middle-overs before Karunaratne (43 no off 35 balls) played a cameo to take the home team past 250 with two huge sixes off Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s (0-63 off 9 overs bowling.
The Indian pacers also bowled a lot of slower deliveries at the back-end as Deepak Chahar claimed 2 for 7 off 7 overs.
For Sri Lanka Avishka Fernando scored ( 32) Charith Asalanka ( 38), skipper Dasun Shanaka ( 39), , a quick cameo unbeaten one from Chamika Karunaratne ( 43) helped Sri Lanka go past 250 target. But against the strong Indian batting line-up it was simply not enough.
