The Indian youngsters sent across an important message to the national selectors during their convincing seven-wicket victory with 80 balls to spare in Colombo on Sunday.

Most of them are yet to establish themselves on the international stage, but they don’t seem to be too far behind in terms of their skill. More importantly, they seem to be a good distance ahead of their Sri Lankan counterparts when it comes to strokemaking, something that could continue being a major factor not just in the second ODI at the Premadasa on Tuesday, but for the remainder of the tour as well.

Besides, Sri Lankan bowlers have had little time to regroup and reset their strategies after the pounding they took against Prithvi Shaw, Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav. As former Sri Lankan middle-order batsman Russel Arnold said the other day, hope appears to be the only guiding force at present for the hosts, especially after Sunday’s outcome. No wonder Sri Lanka are going through probably one of the worst phases of their cricketing history.

Timing, finding the gaps, overall range of strokes and power-hitting – Indian batters proved to be superior in all these aspects. The talented 21-year-old Prithvi covers almost all these facets of batting with only recklessness and poor shot selection being the areas he needs to work on. Suryakumar too can unleash a wide range of strokes and Kishan looks capable of making up his flaws with power-hitting.

On top of that, India have proven performers and experienced campaigners in the form of captain Shikhar Dhawan, who became the second fastest Indian batsman to 6,000 ODI runs the other evening, Hardik Pandya and Manish Pandey.

If India win on Tuesday, they will take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series. Looking back at Sri Lanka’s batting in the previous game suggests it had some momentum only during the first 15 overs and the last few of their innings.

Of course, credit should go to spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal, playing in the same XI after two years, as the duo took wickets and also contained the rival batsmen, particularly during the middle overs. Ditto for pacer Deepak Chahar.

What certainly augurs well for India is the good showing of Kuldeep, who had gone through a harrowing time, in conditions expected to aid spinners during the course of the tour.

“Definitely, if there’s a second game on the same pitch, it’ll spin more than how it did in the first game. Hopefully, in the T20Is, some pitches get repeated, though there will be a time gap. But given the kind of heat and humidity, spinners will surely get turn,” Kuldeep pointed out.

It’s also comforting for Kuldeep to play alongside fellow wrist-spinner Chahal. “We’re comfortable with each other and back each other.

• Match starts: 3pm (IST)