One of the notable developments in the second half of the Rohit Sharma-Rahul Dravid management era was a distinct emphasis on aggressive cricket, not necessarily with the bat alone but from an all-round perspective. Suryakumar Yadav was an integral part of putting that philosophy into practice and Gautam Gambhir is nothing if not aggressive organically, so it is only natural to expect that if anything, aggression would be dialled up as Indian cricket transmutates into a new phase.

One match is hardly an indicator of what to expect from the new leadership group, but already, the signs are that India will continue to keep pressing, to keep moving forward, to keep coming hard at the opposition, at least in the Twenty20 format for the time being.

Saturday was an excellent window to the future. India’s success at the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean, which hosted the Super Eights and the knockouts, revolved around batting first, stacking up the runs and allowing their crack bowling group to do the rest. It helped that, in the incomparable Jasprit Bumrah and the artistic Kuldeep Yadav, they had two consummate match-winners.

Suryakumar and Gambhir, for whom together it was the first match as captain and head coach respectively, didn’t have the services of Bumrah and Kuldeep to fall back on – both have been rested with the more arduous assignments in mind – but that didn’t prevent them from sticking to the template. If anything, the decision of whether to defend or chase was taken away from them after Suryakumar lost the toss, but what followed was an extension of what one has seen in the last year and a bit.

Yashasvi Jaiswal bats in Test cricket as if in a white-flannelled T20 encounter while Shubman Gill is on a journey to reinvent himself as a 20-over batter. Together, they rained boundaries on Sri Lanka’s hapless bowlers on an excellent batting deck at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium on Saturday. What Jaiswal did, Gill did one better; what Gill mastered, Jaiswal didn’t lag behind in. It was attacking batsmanship of the highest order, unfettered but not desperate, uninhibited but seldom ugly.

In a way, the two reprised the Rohit of the last 18 months, brutally effective with the field restrictions in place and only less so thereafter. They raised the 50 in four overs, and when Gill perished trying one big stroke too many, 74 were on the board in 36 deliveries.

Enter Suryakumar, to Suryakumar magic. Captaincy or not, he wouldn’t be shackled. In a throwback to when he was a foot soldier and not the general, he walked across the stumps and took balls from outside off to heave over long-leg; he also pulled out the sweep to negate the threat of the wily Wanindu Hasaranga. It was electric, electrifying; not even the massively pro-Sri Lankan crowd could prevent itself from bursting into ‘Surya Surya’ chants. Perhaps, that’s a first.

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A first too was a complete day off from cricket on Friday, one day before the start of the series. Since arriving in Sri Lanka on Monday, the Indians had had three full practice sessions. Until a month back, the day before the game was an optional day of training; this Friday was different, in that there was no training, no nets, no throwdowns, no gentle hits, no fielding drills. Only Suryakumar made the trek to the ground, and that too for the pre-series presser and a photo shoot with his Sri Lankan counterpart, Charith Asalanka.

Oh, and there was a slice of risk-taking that might have the Suryakumar touch to it. Having lorded much of their chase of 213 for seven, Sri Lanka needed 56 off the last four overs when the skipper tossed the ball to part-time offie Riyan Parag, whose international bowling was restricted to a mere six deliveries in Zimbabwe earlier this month. Parag finished with three for five in 1.2 overs, not with his quirky parallel-to-the-ground stuff but conventional off-break. Was this a one-off? Will we see more of this, and other left-field tactics? Watch this space.

One of the striking similarities with the past, and especially the World Cup final against South Africa, was the unwillingness to give up. India were on a hiding to nothing when Kusal Mendis and Pathum Nissanka took them apart. Heads didn’t drop though the fielding wasn’t up to scratch. At 140 for one after 14, 74 needed in six overs, it was Sri Lanka’s game to win. But once Axar Patel evicted Nissanka, India were a force unstoppable. The end result: nine for 30 in 32 deliveries, victory by 43 runs. The spirit of Bridgetown, you say?