1st ODI: Birthday Boy Kishan makes his debut as India cruise to a seven-wicket win over Sri Lanka. Cricket News – Times of India

Colombo: Ishan Kishan Celebrates his 23rd birthday with a scintillating half-century on debut Shikhar Dhawan, in his first match as captain, led India to a seven-wicket win over Sri Lanka in the opening ODI on Sunday.
On a track that offered slow turns, the inexperienced Sri Lankan batsmen sprinted like millionaires, bowling one wicket after the other, but still managed to post 262 for nine, which was not enough against India’s batting.
Achievement: | as it happened
And it certainly didn’t happen, the target was achieved in just 36.4 overs.
Prithvi Shaw, with his new swagger in 50-over cricket, smashed nine fours in 24-ball 43 to crush the Sri Lankan pacers during his brief stay.

This set the pace for Kishan to come and hit a six off the very first ball followed by a square boundary. Mumbai Indians’ Short then decided to use his bat like a sledgehammer, scoring the second-fastest ODI half-century off 33 balls to end the competition within the first 20 overs.
He lived dangerously to find relief twice, but his 59 off 42 balls with eight fours and two sixes certainly made him a strong contender for a place in the final list of 20 for the ICC T20 World Cup. gave.
Veteran Dhawan, who very wisely dropped the anchor and let the young guns express himself, then finished the match professionally with an unbeaten 86 off 95 balls.

The experience of all those years came in handy as he played the second innings of 58 runs in 5.3 overs for Shaw and only 12.2 overs during the second wicket partnership of 85 runs with Kishan.
But once Kishan was out and together Manish Pandey, (26 off 40 balls) Playing to save his international career, scratching around, Dhawan started playing his shots, not to let the pace slip at any level, which included six fours and a six. imposed on.
Pandey’s selfish approach, trying to score his own runs at the team’s expense, did not yield any good results, as another debutant Suryakumar Yadav showed his flamboyance with a quick 20-ball 31.

Apart from Pandey, another performance that turned out to be a sore throat was Bhuvneshwar Kumar (0/63 in 9 overs), who didn’t look penetrating enough.
India’s bowlers were disciplined, for the better part, without being exceptional, like Kuldeep Yadav (2/48 in 9 overs) and Yuzvendra Chahal (2/52 in 10 overs) got their share of wickets due to Lanka’s negligence.
And then the accuracy of Kunal Pandya (1/26 in 10 overs) made the run-scoring a daunting task in the middle overs, before Karunaratne (43 not out off 35 balls) smashed the home team for two big sixes across 250 To carry played a cameo. Bhuvneshwar Kumar (0/63 in 9 overs) Bowling.
The Indian pacers also bowled very slow at the back end as Deepak Chahar (2/37 in 7 overs) got a pair. Glad to see Hardik Pandya (1/3 in 5 overs) between the wickets and bowling a few overs in two spells. Hardik though never looked like bowling any effort and instead, tried to hit hard lengths.

The first game of the series, which could have been a make-or-break for Kuldeep, took two quick wickets to effect a break in the pace in the 17th over and the home team never really picked up the pace after that.
The best part was that all the three spinners worked with their own distinct bowling styles.
Kuldeep used flight and more drift, Chahal bowled full length but not as clever leg-breaks while Krunal’s wicket-to-wicket deliveries and the pace he bowled were commendable .
Between the three, he bowled 98 dot balls, with 16.2 quiet overs. Add the cumulative dot balls from the pacers, and the unhelpful Sri Lankan’s plight became complicated on the slow turner, as 25 of the stipulated 50 overs went without scoring.
Most of them got starts but didn’t have the means to convert 20 and 30 into big scores.