India 51 for 0 (Gill 27*, Kishan 23*) defeated Sri Lanka 50 (Siraj 6-21, Pandya 3-3) by 10 wickets
In reply, Shubman Gill and Ishan Kishan, who came to open the innings in place of Rohit Sharma, took only 6.1 overs to complete the formalities. Both India’s opening batsmen together hit nine fours; All Sri Lankan batsmen combined scored five runs.
After losing the toss, Rohit Sharma said that he also wanted to bat first on what he called a “dry wicket”. But it started raining ten minutes before the scheduled time. Perhaps this changed the whole situation.
When the match finally started after a delay of 40 minutes, Jasprit Bumrah got the ball moving in both directions. On his third ball, he got Kusal Perera caught behind the wicket. Sri Lanka got an even bigger blow from the other end.
Siraj started with a maiden and beat Kusal Mendis’s outside edge four times in the over. In his next match he took four wickets. Pathum Nissanka was the first to depart, lofting a length ball towards backward point, where Ravindra Jadeja dived down to his right and grabbed the ball with both hands.
Two balls later, Siraj had Sadira Samarawickrama out LBW and soon after hit a boundary to cover off Charith Asalanka. Dhananjay de Silva survived the hat-trick ball. In fact, he pushed it through the vacant mid-on region for four runs. Such was Siraj’s enthusiasm that he chased it to the long-on boundary, leaving Indian fielders, especially Virat Kohli, splitting their sides with laughter.
Dhananjay did not live long; On the next ball, Siraj ended the over by having him caught behind the wicket, thus becoming the fourth bowler after Vaas, Mohammed Sami and Adil Rashid to take four wickets in an over in ODIs (where data is available). In his next over, Siraj uprooted the off stump of Dasun Shanaka to complete his first ODI five-wicket haul.
At 6 wickets for 12 runs, Sri Lanka was in danger of being out on the lowest score of ODI. Mendis and Dunit Velazquez saved them from that infamy by adding 21 runs for the seventh wicket. But Siraj’s work was not completed yet. In the 12th over, he hit a four to uproot the middle stump of Mendis.
Immediately after this, Hardik Pandya wrapped up the innings by taking three wickets.
Gill and Kishan had no trouble chasing the modest target, with Gill opening his account by hitting a four off Pramod Madushan on the last ball of the first over.
From the other end, Kishan hit four consecutive fours off Mathisha Pathirana, only for Gill to hit three fours in three balls in the next over.
Kishan sealed the team’s victory by taking a single from long off on the first ball of the seventh over.
Hemant Brar is sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo