Today’s game was a great example of how helpless the Indian team can get without their skipper Kohli. As Sri Lanka drew their 12 match losing streak to a close in the 1^st match of the 3 match ODI series, they also set a new record of winning against India in India with most number of balls to spare after they finished off with 177 balls in hand, the previous record being 145 balls, by Australia at Vadodara in 2007.

Winning the toss at Dharamshala, Sri Lanka’s new captain, Thisara Perera, sent India to bat first. While Indian skipper, Rohit Sharma, was not very concerned after losing the toss, his teammates exhibited a very poor display of batting and crushed every hope of putting up a good fight. With a hardly defendable total of 112 runs, they were already on the backfoot.

After losing both the openers at just 2 runs, Shreyas Iyer, the debutant was supposed to make a good partnership with Dinesh Karthik. As Karthik got out for a duck, after being dismissed by Lakmal, Manish Pandey also gifted his wicket to the same bowler by getting out for just 2 runs.

Following his footsteps, Iyer got out on 9 runs and Pandya on 10. After Bhubaneswar Kumar’s departure, the score-line was 29 for 7, which indicated that India might end up somewhere near the lowest ODI total.

MS Dhoni, the 6th batsman, was the only one who stood as a shield for the Indian team. His 41 runs’ partnership with Kuldeep Yadav, who scored 25 from 19 balls, was somewhat of a relief. After Bumrah became the third player on the duck-list, Dhoni picked up his half century and also reached the landmark of 16000 international runs by hitting a boundary off Pradeep.

Finally, the leader of the Sri Lankan side, Thisara Perera, got Dhoni’s wicket and dropped the curtain for India’s batting line-up. Dhoni, with 65 runs, was the third player to score a double digit.

Team India’s 25 runs off the bat in the first 20 overs is the lowest ever in ODI cricket since January 1, 2007. The team’s disgraceful batting on their very own ground has left the spectators of the Indian side with nothing but utter disgust and embarrassment. Their struggle to make a mark in the game throughout the day made the supposedly mightiest ODI batting line-up look like a rat in a cats’ party.

Among the 38.2 overs, Sri Lankan bowlers bowled 13 maiden overs which has broke the previous records of most number of maidens(12) given by any side. Suranga Lakmal came out to be the best bowler for the Lankan side, as he bagged 4 wickets with an economy rate of 1.3 from 10 overs. Nuwan Pradeep took 2 wickets, while all of the other 4 bowlers, along with the captain himself, got one wicket each.

As Sri Lanka came to chase a puny total, they lost their first wicket on just 7 runs after Bumrah got Dhanushka Gunathilaka’s wicket, who had scored just 1 run before leaving. The second wicket was taken by Bhubaneshwar Kumar on 19 runs, when Thiramanne got bowled out for a duck.