India defeated Sri Lanka by a big margin in the first T20I at Cuttack to take a lead in the 3 match series.

Sri Lanka won the toss and put India into bat in hopes of dew playing a big role when time for Indian bowling came. India brought in Jaydev Unadkat and KL Rahul in the team, while Sri Lanka gave a debut to Vishwa Fernando.

India presented a strong start with Rohit Sharma hitting a quick 17. But KL Rahul (61 from 48 balls) and Shreyas Iyer (24 from 20 balls) took India through a productive middle over. But India needed a strong finish at 112/3 and MS Dhoni and Manish Pandey provided just that.

MS Dhoni hit 39* in 22 balls with 4 fours and a six off the last ball of Indian innings. Pandey remained not out on 32 off 18 with 2 sixes and 2 fours. India finished on 180/3. Angelo Mathews was the most economical bowler with figures of 19/1 in 3 overs.

Sri Lanka knew that they could chase the total down with dew coming down hard. Unadkat removed Dickwella for 13, while Kuldeep removed Perera for 19. Tharanga was looking dangerous, but Chahal removed him for 23 and after that, it was a demolition job by both Chahal and Kuldeep.

Chahal ended up with figures of 4/23, while Kuldeep took 2/18. Hardik Pandya too took advantage of Sri Lanka’s abysmal batting and picked 3/29 for himself.

MS Dhoni was in top form with two catches and two stumpings in the match along with runs.

Once the spinners started spinning a web around the Sri Lankan batting, players like Mathews, Gunaratne and even Shanaka couldn’t do much as India romped to their biggest T20I win by 93 runs.

BRIEF SCORES:

IND 180/3 (KL RAHUL 61; MATHEWS 1/19) defeated SL 87 (U THARANGA 23; Y CHAHAL 4/23) by 93 runs.