Jayawardene sees Sri Lanka home

Mahela Jayawardene leads his team off after securing a comfortable win for SL

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Captain Mahela Jayawardene cracked a half-century as Sri Lanka coasted to an eight-wicket win over India in the first one-day international at the Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium.

Jayawardene hit an unbeaten 61 and put on 102 for the third wicket with Chamara Kapugedera (45 not out) to steer his team to a 1-0 lead in the five-match series.

Spinners Muttiah Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis claimed three wickets apiece as the hosts bundled out India for just 146 after Mahendra Singh Dhoni opted to bat first.

Sri Lanka lost openers Sanath Jayasuriya (10) and Kumar Sangakkara (19) early, but Jayawardene paced his innings nicely as the home team overhauled the target in 31 overs.

Jayasuriya stepped down the track in an attempt to hoist Munaf Patel over the in-field, but only managed a top-edge which went straight to Irfan Pathan at mid-on.

Patel also got rid of Sangakkara, taking a neat return catch to send back the left-handed batsman as India, completely outplayed until then, hoped to make a match out of it.

But Jayawardene and Kapugedera stemmed the fall of wickets as they carefully negotiated the India pacemen.

Jayawardene hit seven boundaries and Kapugedera four as the Sri Lankans raced home with 15 overs to spare.

Sri Lanka's new-ball bowler Nuwan Kulasekara picked up a couple of early wickets after Chaminda Vaas had got Sri Lanka off to a flying start when he bowled Gautam Gambhir for nought with the second delivery of the day.

India had lost in-form batsman Virender Sehwag to injury before the start of play after the opener twisted his ankle during practice on Sunday.

Virat Kohli took Sehwag's place, but India's former Under-19 captain made little impression with the bat on his ODI debut.

Suresh Raina and Kohli attempted to rebuild India's innings, but both looked tentative and edgy.

Opener Gautam Gambhir has his stumps disturbed with just the second delivery of the day at Dambulla

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Vaas and Kulasekara repeatedly produced deliveries which beat the batsmen and Kulasekara soon had his first victim when he trapped Kohli (12) leg before wicket on the edge of the crease with a delivery that flicked the back pad.

Raina (17), who had struck a couple of boundaries, was next to go when he attempted to drive Kulasekara on the up, only to be caught at short cover by Chamara Silva.

Yuvraj Singh, who blasted 172 in a warm-up match on Friday, was dropped by Jayawardene on five, but Mendis sent back the left-handed batsman for 23 in his first over.

Mendis was introduced into the attack in the 20th over and he almost had Yuvraj with his first ball, a delivery which beat the edge of the bat and flew perilously close to the off-stump and past wicketkeeper Kumar Sangakkara.

Yuvraj then survived a close call off the next delivery when a confident shout for lbw was turned down by umpire Billy Doctrove of the West Indies.

Yuvraj then lofted Mendis for six as he attempted to take the fight to the bowler but Mendis nipped that resistance in the bud as he bowled the left-hander next ball.

Rohit Sharma also departed just after he looked to have settled at the crease.

Rohit had faced 31 deliveries for his 19 runs and appeared to be gaining in confidence when he steered a delivery from Thilan Thushara straight to Jayawardene in the slips.

Dhoni, back in the team after missing the Test series, was initially cautious and edged a Mendis delivery to Jayawardene at first slip while attempting to force the pace.

Murali and Mendis then cleaned up the tail as India were bowled out with four overs to spare.

The second one-dayer is at the same venue on Wednesday.