After India’s comprehensive 38-run win over Sri Lanka in the fist game of the three-match T20I series, stand-in skipper, Shikhar Dhawan praised Suryakumar Yadav for his 360-degree shot on Sunday. Surya played a phenomenal knock of 34-ball 50, is second half-century in his fourth T20 International and was involved in a 62-run partnership for the third wicket with Dhawan.

During the post-match presentation, Shikhar Dhawan said, “He(Surya) is a great player and we enjoy watching him bat. He took the pressure from me and the way he plays calculated shots was amazing to watch.” While Dhawan admitted that he thought they were “10-15 runs short”, he also assessed that it wasn’t too bad in terms of recovery. 

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He further elaborated, “I feel we played quite well after losing early wickets. It was about one or two boundaries, we knew we could get going.”

Dhawan was confident that his spinners would do well and it was vindicated by Yuzvendra Chahal and Krunal Pandya with debutant Varun Chakravarthy taking a wicket each. 

Talking about the spinner, Shikhar Dhawan said, “They were playing well. We knew our spinners will do the job on that wicket. Bhuvi bowled well, so was KP (Krunal). Everyone stood up and even Varun too playing his first match did well giving a few runs and got the wicket. He’s (Varun) difficult to pick, I am very happy for him.”

Sri Lankan captain Dasun Shanaka felt that a target of 165 was gettable, but they could’ve performed better with the bat.

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Shanaka said, “I think 164 was chaseable on this wicket. I think their bowlers upfront started really well. And then there were not enough middle-order batters to finish the game. I think our bowlers did an amazing job. I hope we come out and do better than this in the next game.”