Thushara to Tendulkar, OUT, not the best decision unfortunately but Tendulkar has to go, the ball pitches marginally outside the leg stump and straightens and hits him fairly high on the pad as he tries to work it to the on side, Kumar Dharmasena thinks about it for a while before raising the finger, this is Dharmasena's first decision in ODIs
If you cant get Tendulkar out by bowling get a crooked debutant empire to give him out. Good debut for Dharmsena as umpire. May be he was taking his revenge for being hit by Tendulkar when the dude played.
Mendis & Murali negated. 20 overs 99 runs 1 wkt.
The new 2nd numbered bowler in the ICC rankings negated. 0/32 in 7.
Mahela Jaywardhena, itching to plot a revenge against India flopped again. 11 in 19 balls with no boundaries. Somebody said he relishes India for return to the form. Negated.
Sanga and Kadamby – negated.
Tendulkar effect – negated.
Winning streak of SL – negated.
Yuvraj effect – negated for a while. May be one down next game.
Dhoni effect – multiplied with a power of 2. Hits another cool 50 without being flashy and hitting the ball in “helicopter” and “dhobi – pachad” style. He is one batsman who is challenged for technique and effectiveness. He is one batsman poor in technique but millionaire in attitude and flair. But in the long run that doesn’t matter. The runs you churn out for your team in the situations is something that matters. His 4000 runs mostly have been saving grace for the team as has been 22551 runs from Sehwag and Tendulkar combined.
There you go. India win with 6 wkts with 11 balls to spare. An easy comprehensive win. 6th in row for India. 2 away from their best record (8 in 2003 World Cup). All the high talks from Jayewardene flop and the dirty players go on an off day.
Questions rise again on effectiveness of SL as a team against strong teams or teams at par with it. There is a fact that SL have gone down the performance levels even though they can falsely breathe easy that they have won 6 of their last 7 ODI series. This team doesn’t spread the fear amongst the opposition as the one in 2007 did. That had no Mendis. This one has Mendis and Murali. But they were negated.
Perhaps they are being done in by the lack of ideas and innovation by their skipper. He is unable to perform with bat and sadly he doesn’t ball. He speaks high, he fails to match that with his words. He is proving more to be liability on the field for the team. Perhaps he should take a break or maybe he should leave the job. SL might need Jayewardene as batsman, but the skipper in his form has outlived his sell by date in similar proportion suggested by Straight Point for Ponting. A good leader would accept the problem areas and try to work on them. A false inflated ego won’t help in turning back to the problem. There is a problem. SL doesn’t seem to be a very good team on the field even though they might lose Jaysuriya before 2011 WC. He would be 40 this year. He continues to excel against India and score runs against us. We hate you man. But unfortunately the SL selectors don’t love you enough.
SL have had some problems with the captaincy post 2003 WC when SJ resigned. Choice of Hashan Tilakratne as skipper in his fading twilight of career was shocker and he didn’t deliver. Promptly after 0-3 rout to Australia, he was shown the door. Attapattu, the next skipper hadn’t had much success against stronger teams. Yeah they continued to whip minnows and Pakistan, but he failed against stronger teams like India (2005), Australia (2004) etc. Mahela showed some spark in 2006-07 in his honeymoon period, but then he has now ran out of ideas. He deserves a break.
The only worry for India would be the spinners. Ojha didn’t impress and was negated easily. Other question for MS would be who goes out when Sehwag returns. May be Pathan. He isn’t the allrounder India hoped him to be post IPL. And Sehwag can bowl 10 better overs than Pathan. Sharma might not go as he had a NO against his name today.
Going by the way India played today another whitewash or a 4-1 win is on the cards.
