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Kolkata Knight Riders

about a year ago

A young India sparkled with the bat after Kuldeep Yadav (2-48) and Yuzvendra Chahal (2-52) weaved magic with the ball to seal a 7-wicket win with 80 balls to spare against Sri Lanka in the first ODI in Colombo on Sunday.

Birthday boy and debutant Ishan Kishan made his mark with a quick 42-ball 59 while skipper Shikhar Dhawan led from the front with an unbeaten 86 off 95 balls to help India chase down Sri Lanka's 262 comfortably.

Being put in to bowl first, India struggled a little to break the opening partnership. But as expected, India's favourite KulCha (Kuldeep and Chahal) combination came into rescue. Chahal got the breakthrough in his very first ball when he lured Avshika Fernando (33) to drive one on the up, only to be caught by Manish Pandey.

Kuldeep followed it up with a couple of quick wickets in an over to send back Bhanuka Rajapaksa (24) and Minod Bhanuka (27). While Rajapaksa fell to a brilliant catch by Dhawan, Bhanuka edged one to Prithvi Shaw at the first slip.

Everyone in the Sri Lanka top and middle order got starts but failed to convert them into big scores. Despite a good beginning, Sri Lanka lost the plot in the middle overs where they went on without a boundary for around 10 overs. A late cameo from Chamika Karunaratne (43* off 35 balls) that fetched 19 runs off the last over (from Bhuvneshwar Kumar) propelled Sri Lanka to a respectable total of 262-9.

However, a turf that was mostly meant for batters, barely posed any threat to India's run chase. Prithvi Shaw opened the batting with Dhawan and was a treat to watch as long as he stayed. Out of his 24-ball 43-run knock, 36 runs came from boundaries. He looked well on course to bring up a fifty but Dhananjaya de Silva capitalised on some lapse of concentration after the youngster was hit on the helmet in the previous over.

Kishan coming in at No. 3 was taking all sorts of risks as he opened his account in ODI cricket with a six. His fierce 59 included 8 boundaries and two maximums.

After his dismissal, Manish Pandey (26 off 40) and another debutant Suryakumar Yadav (31 off 20) contributed to short partnerships with Dhawan to take India home.