India defeated Sri Lanka by a huge margin of 62 runs in the first T20 international played at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow on Thursday to take 2-0 lead in the ongoing three-match series. The second game of the series will now be played on Saturday at Dharamsala.
India’s opening batsman Ishan Kishan missed out on a deserving century as he was dismissed for 89 whereas a quickfire 57 not out from Shreyas Iyer powered the home side to a strong total of 199/2 in their 20 overs. In their reply, Sri Lanka could manage just 137/6 with Charith Asalanka scoring a fine half-century for the visiting side whereas the rest of the batsmen cut a sorry figure.
After Sri Lanka won the toss and invited India to bat, it proved to be a wrong call from the visiting team captain Dasun Shanaka, as the opening pair of Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan piled up a huge partnership of 111 runs in only 11.5 hours. While Kishan was severe on the Sri Lankan bowlers, Rohit too made a big score, hitting 2 boundaries and a six to score 44 from 32 balls while playing second fiddle to the young left-handed opening batsman.
Kishan looked in tremendous form as he hammered 10 boundaries and 3 sixes to make 89 from just 56 balls. The left-handed batsman was unfortunate to have missed out on a half-century by 11 runs as he looked completely deserving for one.
After the pair of Rohit and Kishan was broken, Shreyas Iyer resumed the job of demolishing the Sri Lankan bowling attack. The right-hand middle-order batsman hammered 5 boundaries and 2 sixes to score 57 from 28 balls, collecting a lot of his runs towards the end of the Indian innings which finished at 199/2.
Sri Lanka needed a big effort with the bat in order to match India’s might but their batsmen could not do much after opening batsmen Pathum Nissanka on the first delivery of the innings.
Kamil Mishara could make only 13 from 12 balls, Janith Liyanage could not make much of a lifeline that he was given by Venkatesh Iyer with a dropped catch as he was dismissed for a 17-ball 11. But Sri Lanka No 4 Asalanka did well to score 53 not out, for which he consumed 47 balls and hit 5 boundaries. The rest of the Sri Lankan batsmen just did not get any sort of rhythm and momentum to get their huge chase underway.
India used as many as seven different bowling options including that of Deepak Hooda, but it was the pair of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Venkatesh Iyer who impressed the most with the ball. Bhuvneshwar returned with figures of 2-0-9-2 whereas Venkatesh Iyer took 2/36 from his 3 overs.
