Shikhar Dhawan. ‘He finished the match in 15 overs’: Captain Shikhar Dhawan’s interesting statement after victory, Shikhar Dhawan post match comments after India beat Sri Lanka in first ODI at Sri Lanka

Colombo: Indian captain Shikhar Dhawan credited the team’s all-round performance for the easy seven-wicket win against Sri Lanka in the first ODI. Captain Dhawan himself played an unbeaten 86 off 95 balls with the help of six fours and a six, apart from taking the first wicket with Prithvi Shaw (43), 58 for the second wicket with Ishan Kishan (59) and Manish Pandey ( 26) for the third wicket partnership of 72 runs to give India an easy victory at the R Premadasa Stadium. India achieved the target of 263 runs for three wickets in 36.4 overs. Dhawan also became the 10th Indian batsman to complete 6000 runs in ODI cricket during this innings.

Sri Lanka could only manage 262 for nine in front of the sharp bowling of Deepak Chahar (2 for 37), Kuldeep Yadav (2 for 48) and Yuzvendra Chahal (2 for 52). Krunal Pandya, bowling economical, took one wicket for just 26 runs in 10 overs.

Dhawan said after the match, “All our players are very mature and aggressive. He did a great job today and I am very happy with it. All the three spinners (Yuzvendra) Chahal, Kuldeep (Yadav) and Krunal (Pandya) bowled well and got us back in the match.

He said, “It was nice to see Prithvi and Ishaan batting at the other end. Basically I was asking them to play carefully. These players have got a lot of experience playing in the IPL and they finished the match in the first 15 overs itself.

At the same time, Sri Lankan captain Dasun Shanaka admitted that he did not score enough runs. Shanaka said, “We started well but they bowled better after that. I am happy to take the responsibility of captaincy. The Indian team started off aggressively in batting. We needed to change the pace of the ball as the ball was coming smoothly on the bat. We will try to improve it in the next match.