Teams Status

India

Indian batters hadn’t flexed their muscle all through the Windies series but the finally managed to do so in the series opener against Sri Lanka, almost cracking a 200.

The Men in Blue batted first, with Ishan Kishan, the most expensive IPL player, hitting 89 off just 56 balls but missing out on his maiden T20I ton.

Captain Rohit Sharma, usually the master blaster, took a back seat to facilitate Kishan, with the duo forming a 111-run stand for the opening wicket, to which fireworks were provided by Shreyas Iyer, who hit an unbeaten 57 off 28 laden with boundaries.

In the second innings, the Indian bowlers were in control from the get go, with Bhuvneshwar Kumar removing Pathum Nissanka on the very first ball of the innings and the run chase was never on from that moment.

Indians were ruthlessly efficient in the opener. Let’s hope the series’ rest of the matches are more competitive than this.

Sri Lanka

Almost everything that could have gone wrong for Sri Lanka, went wrong in the series opener as they ended up losing by a massive 62 runs.

The bowlers found no joy, the batsmen had no luck and so the result was a lopsided loss, which has the potential of shattering their confidence for the rest of the tour.

The way Sri Lanka are composed, their push has to come from their bowlers because if the bowlers fail then their batters do not have enough firepower to chase down big totals. Only when the bowling unit can restrict the opposition to small totals can they expect the batters to give the chase a serious try.