PALLEKELE: New captain Suryakumar Yadav led from the front with a breathtaking half-century as India comfortably out-batted Sri Lanka by 43 runs in the opening T20 International to start the Gautam Gambhir era with a victory here on Saturday.

India skipper Suryakumar’s 26-ball 58 and a 74-run opening blitzkrieg in just six overs between openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill took India to 213 for 7.

Despite a fine batting effort from the Sri Lankans till the 15th over, the Indian bowlers did well enough to bowl out the home team for 170 in 19.2 overs.

The Indian bowlers did remarkably well towards the back-end, utilising the slowness of the track to provide the team 1-0 lead in the three-match series.

The spinners — Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi and rookie Riyan Parag — snared six of the 10 wickets.

From 149 for 2, Sri Lanka lost seven wickets for just 21 runs as the final quarter of the match was dominated by the Indian bowlers after a listless first 15.

Kusal Mendis (45 off 27 balls) and Pathum Nissanka (79 off 47 balls) were not as brutal as their Indian counterparts but close enough to increase the creases on new coach Gautam Gambhir’s forehead as they didn’t spare any bad balls, getting at least one if not two boundaries per over.

The 84-run opening stand was finally broken by Arshdeep Singh when Mendis couldn’t pick the slower one.

However Nissanka didn’t lose tempo as Hardik Pandya (0/41 in 4 overs) was clearly not in his element, as he consistently missed his length, making it difficult for the new skipper to look for options.

Pandya, who was recently bypassed for national captaincy, is always more comfortable with a good sixth bowling option, which wasn’t there.

Axar Patel (2/38 in 4 overs) was very flat at the onset but got the breakthroughs when it mattered the most, bringing all his experience into effect.

Ravi Bishnoi (1/37 in 4 overs) is slowly becoming very predictable with hardly any leg-breaks to surprise the batters.

The right handers knew that the deliveries will come into them and they got inside the line to out-manoeuvre the wrist spinner.

The absence of Jasprit Bumrah was evident and it was only the scoreboard pressure that helped the ‘Men in Blue’ prevail in the end once Axar’s arm ball got rid of Nissanka.

He also got Kusal Perera (20) in the same over as the match decisively tilted in India’s favour.

Once Bishnoi ended the spell with rival skipper Charith Asalanka’s wicket, India completely gained control.

Skipper Suryakumar took a calculative punt of giving inexperienced Riyan Parag (3/5 in 1.2 overs) the 17th over and he removed Kamindu Mendis to justify his skipper’s faith.

The ever-improving Arshdeep (2/24 in 3 overs) also got his share of scalps as Riyan then finished the proceedings without much ado.