Sri Lanka beat India by 5 wickets in the opening game of the 2018 Nidahas Trophy on Tuesday night. While India scored 174/5 in the first innings, Sri Lanka chased down that total in 18.3 overs for the loss of 5 wickets. Indian stand-in skipper Rohit Sharma credited to the Sri Lankan batsmen for this victory.

In the powerplay, Sri Lanka scored 75/2 which set the match for them. While Kusal Perera played the 66-runs knock, other batsmen provided the supporting knocks which resulted in an easy victory for them.

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Talking about this match performance, Indian captain Rohit Sharma said after the match, “A lot of credit must go to Sri Lanka, to their whole batting group. I’m sure we will learn from our mistakes.”

While Rohit mentioned that their total was defendable, he also pointed out that the Indian batsmen could have accelerated a little more towards the end. He quoted, “I think it was a par score, definitely something we could have defended. We could have accelerated a bit more towards the end. It was a decent wicket.”

The 30-years old right-handed Indian opener, who scored a duck in the game, added, “We all know on a wicket like that you need your batting as strong as possible. Our squad is well equipped with plenty of all-rounders and that offers the balance to the side.”

While the experienced Indian batsmen performed modestly, the inexperienced Indian bowlers failed to do their job correctly. Specially, the Indian pacers leaked huge runs as both the front-line pacers had the economy rate over 10.

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The worst part was the 4^th over of Sri Lankan innings when the right-arm pacer Shardul Thakur conceded 27 runs in that over. At the end of the match, Shardul had a bowling figure of 3.3-0-42-0.

Speaking about the Indian bowling, Rohit commented, “I felt we’ve got enough experience in our bowling line-up. They are very much new into the scene, they have had enough experience having been in these situations before.”