 India was soundly beaten in the first T20I of the two match series by Sri Lanka.
The end margin of 29 runs may not look thanks to the couple of lusty blows from
Ashish Nehra at the end of the innings when all seemed lost for the side, but
the fact of the matter is that India was never in hunt once they lost Gautam Gambhir for a half century.
MS Dhoni had won the toss and surprisingly elected to field first citing dew
as one of the most important reasons for his decision. However, with the entire
game to be played in the evening, it was difficult to visualise dew playing
a very big role and as it turned out, the Indian fingers seemed more wet than
their Lankan counterparts anyway!
Batting first, the Sri Lankans were given an early couple of let-offs by the
Indians, as Yuvraj Singh and Ishant Sharma, both dropped Sanath Jayasuriya
very early in the innings. Despite the forty year old stalwart not going ahead
and making the side pay for the transgressions, he did smash Ashish Nehra for
five boundaries in one over to set the ball rolling.
However, it was Kumar Sangakkara who actually went on to rub the Indian
noses into the sand, much in the same manner as their batsmen had done in the
test match series. Sangakkara began his innings with two cracking boundaries
off the first couple of balls, and followed it up by welcoming Pragyan Ojha
with a couple of fours and a huge six. By the time Ojha could find his bearings,
the Sri Lankans had gone ahead and established a big enough total.
Despite the early dismissal of T.Dilshan, Chamara Kapugedera played
perfect foil to his captain, but he also went ahead with smashing the bowling
all around to propel the Lankans to a near invicincible 215 in the 20 overs.
In reply, Virender Sehwag smacked a couple to the fence before getting
out early, but it was Gambhir who took the attack to the opposition. He kept
finding the gaps in the field, and at one stage, bisected three fielders in
the point and extra-point region to get a boundary. If Sangakkara had taken
21 balls for his fifty, Gambhir brought up his in 17 and had taken India to
88/1 in seven overs!
However, that was about the shenanigans that the Indians could exhibit as the
rest of the batsmen fell away after the dismissal of Gambhir. Sangakkara won
the man of the match, and will now look to make it 2-0 at Mohali.
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