Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Sr Lankan Ship Sinks Further

Well one gone then two followed by three and now, it has been four. So, cricket is found to be so boring with the Sri Lankans in the recent past that forget about winning or a decent encounter, even a positive approach to the game is a thing of the past. After looking at the current one day series against, it is still not been able for me to figure out as to how the Sri Lankans could manage a series win against Pakistan off late. Forget about the series against India. Even against some lower based teams like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh were more than enough to pose problems for the Sri Lankans.

More cricket for Sri Lanka at the moment is found to be more worries and nothing else. A team in India scores a massive score of 332 despite winning the series 3-0 and Sri Lanka are least bothered to even chase the target down. All they were found doing was just trying to draw a test match and nothing else. It all lied in the bowling departmant of Sri Lanka where each and every bowler gets belted. All that the match could produce was Muralitharan's 503rd wicket. Thank god that at last Muralitharan found something for him atleast. Finally you've done it Murali!!!

Coming to the match, there was only one bowler in Sanath Jayasuriya who could end up with runs-per-over of 5.6 (less than 6 runs per over). And Sanath Jayasuriya being the one of the bowler to have bowled less than 10 overs raises some doubts about Mahela Jayawardane's captaincy as well as player handling skills. And in the bowling department of the Indians, even part time bowlers like Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh can be of some contribution. And new comers like Pragyan Ojha and Yousuf Pathan too pose a threat to the Sri Lankan batsmen I believe. So, what can be said of a team like this?

I wish the Sri Lankans had come to this match to face bowlers like Suresh Raina and Rohith Sharma who are rarely given the ball. Or may be even they could end up successful against the Sri Lankan batsmen who knows? All that was required for Sri Lankans to be found kicking themselves were just three Indian batsmen namely Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Gautam Gambhir and Suresh Raina towards the end of the Indian innings. The aforementioned players added 294 runs and the rest added just 14 runs, with extras having been 25. So, this means that the Sri Lankans were never mentally prepared to return to international cricket by any means. India might have won the series against Sri Lanka but, it has failed in selecting a decent opposition against which a thrill could have been expected.

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