India opener Shikhar Dhawan's 90-ball 132* ensures visitors continue to embarrass Sri Lankans on home turf by beating them with 21.1 overs and nine wickets to spare in opening one-dayer
India opener Shikhar Dhawan celebrates after reaching his century in the first ODI against Sri Lanka at the Rangiri Dambulla International Cricket Stadium yesterday. Pics/PTI
Opener Shikhar Dhawan hit a fluent unbeaten century as India continued to embarrass Sri Lanka, cruising to an easy nine-wicket win over the struggling hosts in the opening ODI of the five-match series yesterday.
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India carried its domination from the Test series into the One-day format and achieved its biggest ever win in terms of overs left while chasing a 200-plus total.
The dominant hosts overhauled the 217-run target with 127 balls to spare with Dhawan annihilating the Lankan attack with his brutal 132-run knock which came off just 90 balls.
Dhawan punished the bowlers with 21 boundaries, including three sixes, finishing the match in a jiffy. He brought up his 11th ODI hundred off only 71 balls and it was the second quickest hundred against Sri Lanka by an Indian batsman after Virender Sehwag's 66-ball effort at Rajkot in 2009.
The left-hander raised an unbeaten 197-run partnership for the second wicket with skipper Virat Kohli, who scored 82 off 70 balls.
Dhawan's mental freedom
Dhawan credited mental freedom for his success. "Things have been going well for me and I've just been focussing on my processes. I have mental freedom and when you perform well, you have extra confidence. By the grace of God, things are going my way," Dhawan said after the match.
Earlier, after being invited to bat, Sri Lanka enjoyed its best starts since India's arrival in the country but suffered a batting collapse to be all out for 216 in 43.2 overs, losing nine wickets for just 77 runs.
Niroshan Dickwella (65) and Danushka Gunathilaka (35) gave the hosts a promising start with a 74-run stand but it went on a self destruction mode to be all out in 44th over from a solid 139 for one. Left arm spinner Axar Patel was the stand out bowler for India with career-best figures of three for 34 runs. He was playing his first international match since October last year.
Tharanga distraught
Skipper Tharanga was unhappy with his batsmen. "We started really well and after that we didn't capitalise. The middle order collapsed. One stage, we were thinking of 300. If you want to score 300 in an ODI, someone has to get a big score and that is what we are lacking in the last one or two years," said Tharanga.
Chasing a paltry 217, India did not make the best of starts as Rohit Sharma (4) was run out in the fifth over when he lost his bat and did not ground his feet behind the crease to beat Chamara Kapugedara's throw.
Rohit departs early
He made a slow start and was clearly rusty from sitting out the first half of this tour. But Dhawan batted like he had been throughout this trip and put the Lankan attack to the sword once again. With Kohli for company, he brought up India's 50 in the ninth over and after the first powerplay, the visitors were placed at a comfortable 64 for one. Their 50-run partnership came off only 38 balls. While Dhawan played some attacking strokes, Kohli was content with rotating strike. They never looked at any discomfort during their stay at the crease together, and indeed Sri Lanka did not look like breaking this partnership either.
The second ODI in the five-match series will be played in Pallekele on Thursday.
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