Kulasekara takes two in the field, Jayasuriya gives one

On an overcast morning, Kraigg Brathwaite weathered a testing opening spell from Sri Lanka's seamers. All his hardwork came undone with sloppy technique, not against the new balls but while running. He patted a length delivery to mid-on, judged a run well and immediately set off. However, instead of sliding the bat in, he plonked it in the turf on the adjacent pitch. The bat jarred and bounced back up. Nuwan Kulasekara ran in, picked the ball with his right hand and threw the stumps down at the bowler's end. Brathwaite's feet and bat were in the air, ending an innings that showed promise.

Rovman Powell's debut ODI innings was laden with boundaries on the leg side, a result of a strong bottom hand. In the 44th over, he failed to get underneath one such bottom-handed flick off Suranga Lakmal. The ball skewed off the inside half of the bat and carried to deep midwicket's right. The fielder, Shehan Jayasuriya, moved nimbly and looked set to take a comfortable catch at chest height. The ball, however, bounced out off his palm and lobbed back up. Panicking, Jayasuriya grabbed at a simple parry and juggled it up again. Still panicking, he grasped at it, but the ball had had enough of Jayasuriya and dropped by his feet.

Not many fast bowlers are stationed at midwicket. Kulasekara was and he showed why. In the 47th over, Jason Holder nudged a ball to short midwicket and set off for one. He was slow to start, but picked up pace as Kulasekara swooped in on the ball. He picked up cleanly, turned quickly and released the ball all in one swift motion to hit the base of the stumps at the bowler's end. Even a tall Holder was more than a foot short. Kulasekara took two wickets with the ball and in the field.

West Indies defended 227 on the back of some accurate bowling, but were also abetted along the way by a Harare surface that got gradually harder to score on. Ashley Nurse, in the 22nd over of the chase, pitched an innocuous-looking offbreak on leg stump. But the ball spun and bounced on Upul Tharanga, who had shaped to flick, and bobbled up off the leading edge, and Nurse claimed a simple return catch.

Carlos Brathwaite, too, realised success lay in using the conditions. He repeatedly used offcutters, banging them in the middle of the pitch. Jayasuriya, batting on 31 in the 41st over, was too early into a nudge and a leading edge was snaffled up at midwicket.