Sri Lanka Did The Expected

Well after losing the one day series to the visitors, Sri Lanka should have made up its mind to get up from the land of dreams and bring them into reality whatsoever. But, it looked that the SriLankans never ever wanted that to happen. For, forget about pocketing the T20 game they never did anything seriously in the match to trouble India. The times where India were found reeling was due to the fact that they made a mess of themselves and not because of some beautiful bowling from the Sri Lankan bowlers. So, it would not be wrong if one could say that even this match was one sided.

India winning against all odds has become a habit the day since the Aussie domination has started declining. And the only competent for India being South Africa, a series against the same is no where in the near future. Anyway, thats a different issue altogether. And, coming to the match, a close look at the Sri Lankan scorecard would suggest us that they did play a decent batting. But, is this enough in a T20 game? Just think yourself. India used exactly 5 bowlers who bowled their allotted 4 overs each. Meaning that the Indian captain never required the presense of a part time bowler.

Not exactly. The Sri Lankan batsmen never wanted or never forced Mahendra Singh Dhoni to go in for either Virender Sehwag or Yuvraj Singh to tackle the Sri Lankan batsmen. And instead went in for Ravindra Jadeja who was playing his maiden T20 match. This was the fate of the Sri Lankan team. The Indian bowlers never sufferred at the hands of the Sri Lankan batsmen whatsoever. And neither did the Indian batsmen against the Sri Lankan bowlers. They had plans for every bowler who would make it to the Indian batsmen. If not, what made Mahela Jayawardane go in for seven bowlers?

The only players who never had a ball were the captain himself who seldom bowls and the wicket keeper, whom if you ask him to bowl would show you replays when the ball was given to his hand. But, please don't laugh when that happens. And despite all these, Mahela Jayawardane could not stop the Indian batsmen nor could he stop himself from going first to the presentation party to have a word with Arun Lal. And this I guess was probably the one which prompted him to announce his retirement from captaincy. Not a bad move at all. There is Kumara Sangakkara ready in all aspects. I really pity the Sri Lankan team.

A Nightmare For Sri Lanka?

Well..at the end of the day, the Sri Lankan team looked somewhat relieved, after winning the second test match against Bangladesh. This was however expected. Meaning a Sri Lankan win was expected and not a Bangladeshi fight back. On one hand, if there is a team in Australia who are found to lose their fearsomeness, Bangladesh on the other hand are coming up with surprises in test cricket as well after some amazing ones in one day internationals. Anyway, lets keep that aside for the moment. Coming to the Sri Lanka-Bangladesh tests, I feel Sri Lanka would be saying a "Oh! no never again". That was the trauma that the Sri Lankan team had to go through the series against Bangladesh.

Of course, Sri lanka would have never expected Bangladesh to come back so strongly at them whatsoever. But, Bangladeshis are no morons to not take the advantage of the over confident Sri Lankan team. I still cannot recall as to hoe the Sri Lankan team could manage a win in the first test against Bangladesh at Mirpur, when Bangladesh had gone past 400 runs. Finally, the Sri Lankan team had to rely on their old war horses Muttiah Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis to register a win at Mirpur. Not to forget Sangakkara and Jayawardane who did the job with the bat for Sri Lanka.

After this match, Sri lankan captain Mahela Jayawardane never repeated the mistake what he did at Mirpur and was over cautious so as to settle a win in the second test without any trouble. Of course, the captain can never ever afford to forget this nightmare, which didn't even win the man of the match award for any of his team mates.However, the approach to the second test was not at all satisfactory. For, against a team like Bangladesh, the other teams take as much chances as possible, so as to bring in the lesser experienced ones to face the challenges of the international arena. But, Jayawardane went in with a full strengthed team to face Bangladesh in the second test.

The same old faces of Mahela and Dilshan batting and the same Murali bowling. And look at the target what Sri Lanka imposed on the Bangladesh team. A whooping 624 runs! For, a total of just above 400 would have been more than sufficient against Bangladesh, Jayawardane took no chances absolutely to put pressure on the bowlers. It would not be wrong to say the Mahela Jayawardane didn't have enough guts to dictate the bowling on the Bangladeshi batsmen. Jayawardane never wanted to take chances against even Bangladesh, fearing a major upset to him and his team. A fear of losing a test to Bangladesh was always there in the minds of Mahela Jayawardane. Mahela's efforts to win the test against Bangladesh would have even outclassed Smith's efforts to win the ongoing test series against South Afrcia.

Captain Sets Up A Debacle for His Team

Well it would have been better had Virender Sehwag not got into such an act.This I mean is the decision of the Delhi Daredevils captain-Virender Sehwag who took the initiative by taking the ball in his hands,after some good work with the bat.As a result,this suicidal decision proved to be very costly for the Delhi Daredevils team as the over bowled by Virender Sehwag was belted for a costly 22 runs in the match which fate awarded it to the Kings XI Punjab after rain interrupted and the match had to be stopped after the Kings XI Punjab had batted for just 8 overs.Bad funda indeed!!
And a last ball six from the blades of Mahela Jayawardane locked the doors for the Delhi Daredevils.Oh!What a bad luck!Here comes the role of the unseen player in the form of fate which happened in this case to be the drizzles.Added to this,Virender Sehwag's score card read 47 runs from 19 balls and in the end 51 runs from 26 balls.Meaning just four runs from 7 balls towards the end of the innings.God knows as to why Sehwag decided to take the ball in his hands?

All batsmen belonging to the Delhi Daredevils team failed but for Sehwag and Gambhir.What better result can one expect with such a horrible thinking?With bowlers like Glenn McGrath and Maharoof,and with the showers pouring in,the unexpected could have been predicted.Don't know as to why Sehwag did this!It was something like the Proteas in the crucial league tie against Sri Lanka in the 2003 world cup which ended South Africa's world cup dreams for one more time.And one more such instance that I can give is the super eight match between Sri Lankaand Pakistan in which Mahela Jayawardane handed over the ball to Jayasuriya who got belted for 64 runs off his four overs,following which the same Jayasuriya scored a duck.

Singh vs Singh and Kings vs Kings

It was a battle between two Kings in Chennai Super Kings and Kings XI Punjab and also between two Singhs in Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni who captained their respective sides.One team that had come off from bottom to top and the other maintaining their streak with some ups and downs in the tournament.

But some difference with so many similarities between the two teams that clashed out there was that the match witnessed what no other team in the tournament so far has been able to achieve so far.A hattrick by a man who was seen in action after almost two and a half years-Laxmipathi Balaji.Also not to mention the clash between two players who have played for the same team for years altogether.But this time one had to face the other's bowling.Muttiah Muralitharan and Mahela Jayawardane two M's.And finally similar to his team's result,Murali's result was also no different. Murali did the same to his counterpart what Dhoni did to his.

All could be forgotten but for the wicket of Irfan Pathan who was threatening to walk away with the match had he not been taken by Raina off the bowling of the local hero-Laxmipathi Balaji.Irfan scored an 18-ball 40 before the ball found the hands of Suresh Raina.The Kings XI Punjab gave away 15 runs in extras with some clever bowling off Chennai Super Kings gave away just 3.If this was not to be,the Chennai Super kings had nothing when it came to their batting for the strike rates of even the settled batsmen was not above 150.

The match result may say whatever but both the kings team put up a decent performance what-so-ever.Both threatening to take away the game from each other time and now.

Replace a Match Winner By Another Match Winner

Set a thief to catch a thief.And this is what the Kings XI Punjab were found doing in the encounter against Deccan Chargers who on the last night gave the kings a tough fight.People like Shahid Afridi,Adam Gilchrist and Herschelle Gibbs-who are known for their hard hitting abilities were found to do the scoring part only in the imaginary world.While lesser known names (when it come to big hitting) like V V S Laxman and Rohith Sharma were found to dominate with the bat.And the coincidence being that the match winner in the last game-Simon Katich was replaced by another match winner-Shepherd Marsh(son of Geoff Marsh).

And one of the rare feats that is witnessed in the Indian Premier League,both the teams put up a tough fight.But,as the rules of the game goes,there could be only one winner and that turned out to be the Kings XI Punjab.Someone like Yuvraj Singh and Shahid Afridi were once again found to disappoint.But,the man who made the day out there was Rohith Sharma who scored an unbeaten 76 off just 42 balls-just like he did in the inaugural T20 world cup against South Africa in South Africa.This happened when all the batsmen from the other end collapsed but for VVS Laxman.

And it was also a delight to watch Mahela Jayawardane who scored 45 runs off 23 balls which involved most of them scoops.After all,it was a rare fight that was witnessed in the IPL after the second game.And also more smiles for Priety Zinta who saw her team climb up the stairs after three initial losses.

The Curse Of 300+

Well its was all cheers for Virender Sehwag the other day when he belted a 277 ball 300,the fastest triple hundred in the history of test cricket.But,in addition to this,there is also a harsh truth which is nothing but the result of that match which was a boring draw.Not the first time this has happened,but in most of the time the test match which has witnessed a batsman scoring a triple hundred has ended in a draw.The only thing that the fans could take home was some awesome shots and exciting batting by the batsman concerned.

Lets take a few examples concerning test matches having a triple centurion.Luckly the last time a batsman who scored a triple hundere for his team won the match for his team and that is Mahela Jayawardane who scored 374 runs to see his team win by an innings and 153 runs.

Then we have Chris Gayle's 317 against the same South Africa which once again made it into the batting record books as the match had as many as 8 centurions in that test.And then we have Matthew Hayden's 380 which off course saw his team through.But the opposition??Then the gr8 innings of Brian Lara-400* against England,his 375 against England,Sanath Jayasuriya's 340 versus India,Inzy's 329 against New Zealand-which Pakistan won by an innings and 324 runs,Mark Taylor's 334* which ended in a draw &finally Virender Sehwag's 309 against Pakistan which India won by an innings & 52 runs.

Taking stats together,there have been only 8 instances(out of 22) of a match producing a result which has a batsman scoring a triple hundred.