Ivory Coast made hard work of winning their first game in Group B of this year's Africa Cup of Nations. The Elephants, favourites to win the tournament, dominated the first half but had to wait 39 minutes for Didier Drogba to open the scoring.

Sudan came into the game from that point on, having initially set themselves up to contain their opponents, but Drogba's remained the only goal of the match.

Gervinho fired over with the first shot of the game before Najem Abdullah was booked for fouling the Arsenal forward. Jean-Jacques Gosso's 25-yard swipe was wildly off target and Yaya Touré and Gervinho were also wasteful with headers.

Gervinho lashed wastefully wide following Drogba's superb control and lay-off but the opener finally arrived when Salomon Kalou crossed from the left for his Chelsea team-mate Drogba to head home his 51st international goal.

Sudan, ranked 120th in the world compared to their opponents' 18th, almost found an immediate response when Hamid Nazar's mis-hit shot was controlled by Mohamed Bashir, who fired wide, and then Eltaib Mudather cut inside and saw his shot tipped on to the crossbar by the keeper Boubacar Barry.

Sudan started the second half brightly, with Alaadine Yousif forcing a save from Barry and Nazar shooting wide.

Gervinho's close-range effort almost caused problems for the keeper Elmuez Maghoub before Mudather injured himself as he landed awkwardly after an ambitious overhead effort from about 30 yards

As Ivory Coast looked to kill the game off, the substitute and former Leeds United player Max Gradel dragged a shot hopelessly wide and Drogba volleyed over. Gervinho then struck a dropping ball just high and wide of the target and Yaya Touré got his 25-yard effort all wrong before the game petered out, Nazar shooting well wide from Sudan's last opportunity.