Sangakara has praised the Ahmedabad pitch. Only cynics would praise that. Nothing new in it. He cherishes batting pitches. Tests with no results. Tests with long batting innings is his forte. He finds character in pitches where even Angelo Matthews would pretend to be a Freddie Flintoff for Lanka.
Murali's love with India continues. 3 for 221 in 100 odd overs. 70 runs per wkt out of which 2 were tail enders. He is a spent force now.
What character does Sangakara see in his team ? A team which bats for 3 and half days and fails to get a team out 2 times to win a Test. 344 runs is the lead and he declares on day 4 2nd half. Isnt 200-250 runs lead not enough ?
Amazing team this. They are the front runners to kill the Test cricket. Mahela Jaywardhene has 9000 odd runs, but is he better than say Garry Sobers or Geoff Boycott or those legends who scored less than him ? Staticstics might project him a very attractive prospect to be called as great, but then has he even scored runs in difficult batting conditions? Except Bangladesh, has his double hundreds won his team Tests outside his country ?
Dravid has 27 hundreds, this guy has 27, Sangakara has 20. Laxman has just 15 and Sehwag has 15. Compare the conditions and pitches for all this hundreds and you'd find the Dravids and Laxmans have scored 100s in all conditions. Match winning, match saving. Both. One 281 won India the greatest test match it ever played. 270 won India its first Test series in Pakistan. 300 odd runs in WI 2006 got India its first test series win in 35 years.
Compare that figures for Sangakara and Jaywardhena. Except that 191/194 in Australia, its tough to find an innings of substance for this lads. Most of them are made on dead wickets of Sri Lanka. Bore. Yawn!!!
Thats what SL do to the Test cricket. They make us yawn.
By the by, Indians got out of the woods they were in. And that showed the character the team has. From 4/32 to 426 and then to save the game talks deep about the heart, character and depth the team has. Just that the curators of Motera are axed for preparing a Premdasa in India.
