The opening argument: Is Ajinkya Rahane a better shot than Rohit Sharma?

India beat Sri Lanka by 169 runs in the first ODI. Here are three things we took from the game.

Should Ajinkya Rahane or Rohit Sharma open the innings for India?

A gentle push to mid-on gave India’s selectors a huge headache. The stroke took Rahane to his second ODI century in 2014, both of which have come since he moved up to open the innings after Rohit was injured in England.

Since taking over from Rohit, Rahane has averaged 46 compared to 29 for his career.

While Rohit has also made more of opening than batting in the middle order, he tends to eat up far too many deliveries and struggles to rotate the strike early on. It is either feast or famine. Rahane may not have the range of strokes that Rohit has, but he is technically sound and his cricketing IQ allows him to adapt his game to different situations.

In an interview with ESPNcricinfo prior to the Sri Lanka series, Rohit dismissed the suggestion that he won’t automatically return to the side as an opener.

“In previous times, when Sachin did not play, someone else had to open in his place, so did you ask the same question to him then? I have been injured and out of the team and someone else has replaced me in that position. I don’t know why it is such a huge debate. Nothing is going to happen. It’s going to remain the same.”

But given Rahane’s steely temperament and ability to make runs in all conditions, he has a strong case to open ahead of Rohit even when both are fit.

The question that remains how will India get the best out of Rohit if they choose to use him in the down the order, where hasn’t come close to doing justice to his undoubted physical gifts.

Can Varun Aaron stay fit?

It was a surreal sight: India’s two opening bowlers were operating at over 140 kph. While Umesh Yadav was consistently in the 140s, Aaron hit 152 kph, by the far the fastest ball of the match. Together, they had Sri Lanka’s openers ducking and hoping around as if they were in the center of a dodge ball game.

For a brief moment in time, if you closed your eyes, you could imagine the two of them giving Australia a taste of their own medicine on the bouncy pitches down under. Then, sadly, injury struck. Aaron pulled up after the first delivery of his fifth over and limped off the field. He was later diagnosed with a quadriceps strain and was done for the day.

Aaron has a long history with injury, despite being just 25 years old. He has already fought back from two stress fractures in his back and this latest setback must be hugely frustrating for him. The ways things are going, Aaron is threatening to become another broken body littering the sides of India’s fast bowling highway. The BCCI needs to do everything it can to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Virat Kohli showed he likes to go for the kill

This shouldn’t surprise anyone. It is how he bats. He doesn’t just want to beat you, he wants to knock you out. When Kohli brought Ishant Sharma back in the 34th over, Michael Holding made the point on commentary that Kohli was looking to bowl Sri Lanka out rather than let the game drift to its inevitable conclusion.

Ishant took a wicket with his second ball and then two more in his following over as Sri Lanka were bowled out in 39.1 overs.

Kohli has now won 10 of the 13 ODIs in which he has captained India. That’s too small a sample size from which to draw any definite conclusions, but it’s not too shabby a start.