West Indies began their pursuit of getting accustomed to conditions for the T20 World Cup in 19 months in India and Sri Lanka on a powerful note in Dambulla in the first T20I of the three-match series. Being set a target of 180, the West Indies got home with five balls to spare with the openers Brandon King and returning Evin Lewis laying the foundation for a magnificent outing with the bat. King and Lewis, both slammed quickfire fifties as the openers potentially killed the chase with their 107-run opening stand off just 55 deliveries and helped the visitors take a 1-0 lead in the series.
Chasing 180 against and in Sri Lanka with the hosts' bowling attack wasn't going to be an easy task, however, both Lewis and King made their intentions very clear from the very first over. Lewis, who last played a T20I for the West Indies back in the T20 World Cup in 2022, on return hit a six and a four in the first over bowled by Chamindu Wickramasinghe and King followed it up with a couple of boundaries off Asitha Fernando in the next and there was no looking back from then on.
Switch to spin also didn't help and King and Lewis took their chances which came off and the West Indies raced off to 74 in the powerplay. Sri Lanka needed multiple moments of magic as the visitors seemed to be running away with the game as they were off the blocks quite early on in the second innings.
King got to a 25-ball half-century with a six and a four of Matheesha Pathirana and skipper Charith Asalanka was slowly clueless regarding his bowling options as nothing was working. The duo achieved a 100-run stand in the 9th over and the result seemed inevitable before Sri Lanka finally struck in the 10th over. Pathirana sent back Lewis, who had just completed a half-century.
West Indies lost three wickets in as many consecutive overs as Sri Lanka got a window of opportunity to come back into the game. However, Roston Chase and Sherfane Rutherford with their cameos denied any such possibility. Even though the Windies went on to lose a couple more wickets the openers had ensured that there wasn't much room left for the incoming batters to mess up leaving Sri Lanka to bowl out of their skins to get a result in their favour.
Earlier, it was skipper Asalanka and the man who can't do anything wrong at the moment, Kamindu Mendis, who helped Sri Lanka get to a strong score of 179 despite a poor start with the bat in the powerplay. The duo's 82-run stand for the fourth wicket, even though a bit on the slower side, meant that Sri Lanka were able to post a good total but eventually it wasn't enough as visitors went 1-0 up in the series.
