India suffered an embarrassing 7-wicket defeat in the first ODI of the 3-match series against Sri Lanka at Dharamsala last week. Put into bat, Indian batsmen looked clueless as the Lankan pace troika of Suranga Lakmal (4/13), Nuwan Pradeep (2/37) and Angelo Mathews (1/8) stifled the hosts with a fine display of swing bowling. Half of the Indian batting line-up was gone for just 16 runs and at one stage, there was a possibility of the hosts being dismissed for less than their lowest-ever ODI score of 54, but Mahendra Singh Dhoni showed his class once again and blasted 65 off 87 balls to single-handedly take India to 112 all out.
With an early start to the match, Lakmal, who completed his quota of 10 overs in a single spell, emerged as the wrecker-in-chief for Sri Lanka, returning with impressive figures of 10-4-13-4. Sri Lanka put India on the backfoot right from the start with Mathews trapping opener Shikhar Dhawan in front of wicket in the last ball of his first over. Lakmal produced some extra bounce with his away going delivery and Rohit ended up poking at the ball to be back to the pavilion after the third umpire overturned the not out decision. With India tottering at 2-2, Dinesh Karthik joined debutant Shreyas Iyer in the middle. After four maiden overs, Iyer finally hit the first four and also got off the mark when he guided a Mathews delivery to the mid-wicket boundary.
Living dangerously on the other end, Karthik was then sent back to the pavilion by Lakmal as India ended the power play overs at 11 for 3. Nuwan Pradeep replaced Mathews even as Perera persisted with Lakmal and it worked as the pacer produced a superb delivery to induce a thick outside edge off Manish Pandey as India slumped to 16-4. Two balls later, Pradeep uprooted Iyer’s stumps when the debutant inside-edged a delivery onto the stumps as the hosts lost half their side in the 14th over. Pandya then scored a couple of boundaries before giving an outside edge to Pradeep.
Dhoni and Yadav played some valuable innings. Yadav looked in good touch as he blasted four boundaries but Dickwella produced a brilliant stumping off the bowing of spinner Akele Dananjaya to end his innings in the 26th over. Dhoni then added 17 and 25 runs with No. 10 Jasprit Bumrah and No. 11 Yuzvendra Chahal before being holed out in the 39th over.
Though the Lankans were challenged by Indian bowlers – Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah – the target was too small and they cantered to a 7-wicket win inside 21 overs.
Brief scores: India 112 all out in 38.2 overs (Dhoni 65; Lakmal 4/13). Sri Lanka 114/3 in 20.4 overs (Tharanga 49; Bumrah 1/32).
