Sri Lankan bowler Chamika Karunaratne admitted they were aware of Team India’s attacking approach in the first ODI in Colombo but weren’t able to stop the onslaught. India chased down Sri Lanka’s total of 262 in the opening ODI by seven wickets with 80 balls to spare.
Batting first in the opening game, Sri Lanka got off to a good start but couldn’t enforce their innings from there on as they lost wickets at regular intervals. They huffed and puffed to 262/9 in 50 overs.
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In response, Prithvi Shaw came out all guns blazing and scored 43 runs in just 23 balls, where he hit nine fours. Team India scored 91 runs inside the 10-over powerplay. Ishan Kishan scored flamboyant fifty on debut while Shikhar Dhawan top-scored with unbeaten 86 to complete the formalities.
Karunaratne admitted Sri Lanka should have looked to bowl dot balls instead of looking to dismiss the batsmen.
“We tried to get wickets rather than bowl dot balls. We tried to use our bouncers and our pace. They are a top team and we knew they would attack us. If we’d taken wickets, we would have been able to pull them back,” said Karunaratne during a virtual post-match press conference.
“We were able to get one in the powerplay, and if we’d had another one or two in the powerplay we would have been able to change the game a little bit.”
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He admitted Sri Lanka suffered due to their batsmen not converting a good start into a big knock and the lack of partnership also hurt their cause.
“A lot of our batsmen got good starts, but a lot of us weren’t able to continue. We were trying to play longer innings, even when I was batting with Dasun Shanaka in the 42nd or 43rd over I asked him if I should go for some big shots, but he told me to wait until the 45th over,” he further added.
“If more of our batsmen had been able to bat longer, we could have attacked earlier and gone for a bigger score. We do have the ability to get to 300 or 350, and hopefully, that will happen in the next games.”
The second ODI will be played on July 20 in Colombo and Shikhar Dhawan’s India will look to seal the series.
