Suryakumar Yadav revisited last month’s T20 World Cup final thriller against South Africa after securing his first victory as the team's full-time T20I captain on Saturday (July 27).

The world champions defeated Sri Lanka by 43 runs in the T20I series opener in Pallekele, but they were made to work hard despite having posted 213 on the board.

The Lankan duo of Pathum Nissanka and Kusal Mendis tore into the Indian new ball attack as they stitched an 84-run stand for the opening wicket. After the dismissal of Mendis (45 off 27), Nissanka added 56 runs for the second wicket with Kusal Perera, taking the hosts to 140/2 in the 15th over.

Akshar Patel brought India back in the game, dismissing both Nissanka (79 off 48) and Perera (20 off 14) in the same over.

After surviving a scare, Suryakumar said the T20 World Cup final has taught a valuable lesson that all is not over until it's over.

"Absolutely (end came earlier). They were playing a very good brand of cricket from the first ball, an attacking brand of cricket. I think credit goes to them the way they batted," the skipper said at the post-match presentation.

"We never thought the game would go away from us because of the way we played the World Cup and from the situation from where we won it, that reminded us that the game was still too far," he added.

Akshar’s twin strike triggered a collapse as Sri Lanka slipped from 140/1 to 161/6 with spinners inflicting the damage through the middle-order. Part-timer Riyan Parag returned with three scalps while Ravi Bishnoi picked up a wicket.

Arshdeep Singh and Mohammed Siraj claimed a wicket each as Sri Lanka were bundled out for 170 in 19.2 overs.

Earlier in the day, Suryakumar Yadav slammed a scintillating half-century (58 off 26) while Rishabh Pant (49 off 33), Yashasvi Jaiswal (40 off 21) and Shubman Gill (34 off 16) made handy contributions with the bat to take India to a mammoth 213/7 in 20 overs.