Suryakumar Yadav couldn't have asked for a better start to his full-time T20I captaincy as India hammered Sri Lanka by 43 runs in the first game of the three-match T20I series.
The Indian openers Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal set the game beautifully after Charith Asalanka won the toss and elected to field first.
Jaiswal (40 off 21 balls) and Gill (34 off 16 balls) got India off to a flyer and posted 74 runs on the board at the end of the powerplay. The brisk start allowed Suryakumar to set off without wasting any time in the middle and saw the Sri Lankan bowling gasp for breath.
The crowd that had gathered at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium witnessed the vintage avatar of the India skipper as he smashed the Sri Lankan bowling.
His knock was studded with eight fours and two sixes and guided India to a formidable total of 213 runs.
Sri Lanka responded strongly but fell short in the end as they couldn't manage to get the boundaries towards the latter stages of the game.
Suryakumar was adjudged the Player of the Match (POTM) - his 16th in T20Is and drew level with Virat Kohli for securing the most POTM awards in the shortest format of the game.
Most Player of the Match (POTM) award winners in T20Is
| Player |
Country |
POTM awards |
| Suryakumar Yadav |
India |
16 |
| Virat Kohli |
India |
16 |
| Sikandar Raza |
Zimbabwe |
15 |
| Virandeep Singh |
Malaysia |
14 |
| Mohammad Nabi |
Afghanistan |
14 |
The newly-appointed India captain lauded Sri Lanka's efforts and admitted that he was not expecting the hosts to take the game away from them.
"I think they were playing some good brand of cricket from ball one. Even with wickets falling, they [SL] kept the tempo up. We practised here for two-three days and we knew how the wicket would play. We never thought it [the game] would go away from us, given we won the World Cup. Fortunately, there was no dew," said Suryakumar during the post-match presentation.
