'Zaheer Khan looked fit and relaxed and he was putting the ball in the right places' © AFP

Sanjay Manjrekar: The first day's play was a real dampener. It was a pity that the inevitable rains had to make their presence felt right at the start of the series because that can really deflate some of the enthusiasm that had been built up over the last few months because India are playing an international Test series here [in Sri Lanka] after a long time. So that was a bit of a false start in the morning. But despite that, we had some play which was good and hopefully the weather will be even better tomorrow and we can have more play because these two teams look evenly matched. At the start of the series I felt Sri Lanka would have a home advantage, but they have no Lasith Malinga or Farveez Maharoof and their batting is heavily dependent on Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene. India are starting to look like a team that, at least on paper, seems better. It is a team that competes now even in adverse conditions.

Today's bowling performance was very impressive, [especially] Zaheer Khan. He mentioned in his post-match interview that the fact he bowled 25-26 overs in the warm-up helped him bowl the way he did today. I thought he looked fit and relaxed and he was putting the ball in the right places. He wasn't really going overboard with pace or bounce; he was just bowling smartly. Ishant Sharma's fans would be happy to see the way he bowled. He bowled some beautiful deliveries - the ball that got Michael Vandort out was something quite rare - you don't get to see batsmen getting out in that fashion on pitches in Sri Lanka. That happened with Ishant Sharma and that is the advantage he gets with his height.

It was an impressive bowling performance from the Indians. Anil Kumble would have felt he was one seamer short but these were conditions that you don't really expect in Sri Lanka: despite the pitch being dry and the grass being dead there was some movement for the seamers under the overcast conditions. The overall assumption you can make about the pitches here is that they will get more and more spin-friendly as the match progresses and the sun comes out.

Today was the first game in which the referral [review of umpiring decisions] system was being trialled but unfortunately the players didn't feel the need to review any decision. There was one instance when Sangakkara was struck on the pad and I thought that Kumble may have thought about asking for that decision to be reviewed, but he thought otherwise. But [had it been referred] with the help of the technology, in all probability the third umpire would have gone with the decision of the on-field umpires. This review system is getting a lot of attention. Most of the current players seem to be quite happy with it and they should be because it is an attempt to minimise human error through technology. I initially used to think human error was part and parcel of the game and should be accepted. I don't think umpiring decisions change the fate of a match and a team doesn't become the best team purely on the account of benefiting from such errors.

That was my view but things change. I am all for experiments. They [the ICC]are going to try it, [and it will be a success] if the viewers, the players and the umpires like it. The umpires might feel that this is another way in which they are tested, where maybe, at the end of three years they will be shown up better: the umpires with the most successful reviews will be the weakest umpires in the panel. So that will also give the ICC a better indication as to how the umpires are performing. This is an experiment that most of us are happy about. We will see how it goes and see the overall effect of this innovation on the game of cricket before we can take a firm decision on it.

So at the end of the first day's play it was the rain that got most of the attention, though India impressed with the ball, taking those two wickets towards the end of the day's play before bad light stopped play.