Posts Tagged ‘Sri Lanka’
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India's Fielding was a concern to the Indian captain in spite of a comfortable win
In the post-match presentation after India beat Sri Lanka convincingly, Mahendra Singh Dhoni said that it was “Fishy” the way both the teams fielded in the second T20 game at Mohali.
“I have never seen a team dropping so many catches. But there was something funny going around, something fishy. Sri Lanka also missed so many run-outs. We have to improve our bowling, apart from fielding. Not only in T20s, but also in ODIs,” Dhoni had said after the Mohali tie.
He said that top sides don’t make so many mistakes in the same game and he felt something was not right.
This comment was made as both teams fielded awfully in the game as India dropped as many as 6 catches and Sri Lanka missed a bunch of run outs adding to couple of catches they dropped as well.
Even though Dhoni’s statement above might have been an innocuous one, I hope that it does not stir up any controversies. Dhoni later said that it might have to be something with the ground or lights which may have caused such appalling fielding by both the teams, but his choice of words were really interesting. Hopefully, this won’t cause more reading between the lines and turn this into another match-fixing saga.
Motera wicket was disappointing
Posted on: December 1, 2009
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The India-Sri Lanka series touted as the race to number one rankings had a disappointing start with the first test match in Motera ending in a dull draw. The test match in Ahmadabad is all that is wrong with Indian cricket. When there have been calls to save the oldest form of the game around the world, BCCI have dished out boredom to drive the fans away from the grounds. Its seems like BCCI is only worried about the money they can make out of sponsorships and IPL and not a bit bothered about the state of pitches in India.
Sambit Bal last year wrote an article on cricinfo blasting Pakistani pitches after the Karachi game but the pitches in India are not that far behind. Sambit’s intentions may have been good by singling out pitches in Pakistan was not the right way to go. Reading the recent article by Dileep Premachandran, it seems like there is not much of a difference between the pitches in Pakistan and India. India has one of the worst percentages of results when compared to other cricketing nations.
According to the article, India has hosted 24 games in the past 60 months out of which 11 have been draws. This is a pathetic statistic for a team who is trying to become the best side in the world. With ever increasing T20 leagues in India I guess the BCCI have to take more interest in improving the quality of test cricket in India. I don’t think that anything of that sort has been even tried yet by the board. As Sourav Ganguly rightly mentioned in his column, even though Rahul Dravid and Mahela scored those brilliant hundreds the Motera pitch was a real disappointment.
No one wants to watch a game where the bowlers are just mere participants with not effect whatsoever and the batsmen are running the show. The unfortunate part is that the grounds men in India are in so much pressure to make matches last for 5 days for the BCCI to make money out of TV rights. Already we have seen paltry crowds for test matches in India and with these sorts of pitches ardent lovers of the format like me will also be driven out of the stadiums in the future.
Test cricket is still the premium form of cricket around the world and efforts should be taken to improve the quality of pitches around the world. The ICCI should crack down heavily on boards that encourage pitches like Motera for International fixtures. Kanpur (Venue for the second game which concluded last week) test was heading the same direction as Motera after the first day’s play but was saved by the result.
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Doug Bollinger takes 5 to hand India a series defeat
India lost yet another bilateral series to Australia yesterday after an inept batting display by the home side. The Indian batting display in this series would be a great cause for concern in the Indian camp. The Australian team though has done a wonderful job with a depleted side, missing almost 7-8 regular players in the squad. The Indian captain would be very disappointed with result as after the first 3 games it seemed as though the home team were the frontrunners.
The Indian problems though are 3 fold, batting, fielding and bowling. Australia were better in the above three disciplines. This has been the problem with the Indian team over the past few months. When the batting clicks, they are a very hard team to beat as they usually rake up a huge total but if it fails the bowlers are not good enough to win those games. The fielding has been a problem too, lots of drop catches and misfield punctuates Indian efforts in the field these days.
When the team was doing well all these faults were overlooked as winning was more important at that time but recently we have seen that this team is far from becoming the number one team in the world. India has to seriously look into their ODI combination as we are just over a year away from the WC. The bowling looks thin and the batting inconsistent and this in addition to poor fielding makes India’s chances in the 2011 WC very slim.
A 4-2 series loss against a severely depleted Aussie team will not go well with the fans and the management alike but Dhoni and Kirsten would be relieved that the Sri Lankan series starts right away.
Crucial Game for India
Posted on: February 22, 2008
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Sunday’s contest between India and Australia is a very crucial game for both the teams. Its almost certain that India would join Australia in the best of 3 finals after Srilanka’s loss in Melbourne on Friday. Srilanka will be very dissapointed as this is not the first time their batting has let them down against the Aussies in this series. Srilanka though need to win both their matches from here on and hope India loses theirs.
The Indian team though pulled off a crucial win against the Lankans on Tuesday to go up by 6 points on the table. One thing which is common to all the three sides in this series is that their batting has struggled. The bowlers from all the three sides have had great success in this series and the fact that there has been just two 250+ totals in this series is shocking considering the batting strength of the sides.
India would hoping to keep the trend going as I think the best possible scenario would be for India to bat first and post a challenging total on the board. Dhoni who has had pretty ordinary luck with the tosses would want to win one soon. Teams have generally found it difficult to chase as the pitches have been really difficult to bat on. The Australian batsmen except for Clarke and Hussey have found it really hard in this series to get the ball off the square. The Indians would hope to keep it that way. The Indian bowling has been great throughout the tour with Ishant Sharma being the find of this series. Ishant has been getting able support from Sreesanth, Munaf and Irfan and as a unit they have been able to keep the Australian batsmen quiet.
Both the teams have each won one game in their previous three meetings and whoever wins this one will get a slight edge before the finals. India would like to win this one and completely eliminate Srilanka from the picture. All in all this promises to be a great game and we hope that it lives up to the expectation.
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India completed their 2-0 whitewash in the test series against Srilanka and in the process became the second best team behind Australia replacing England.The series was way closer than the final scoreline indicates but the Indian team wouldnt be complaining.The series would be mainly remembered for the controversy surrounding Ganguly’s expulsion from the third test rathar than the happenings on the field.
The Indians would be happy with their performance on the field though as they came through with an impressive scoreline of 2-0 in hard fought series.The Indians were bailed out on numerous occassions by the lower order after the top 5 failed more than once(They contributed more than 70% of Indian runs this series).The lower order batting of Yuvraj,Pathan,Harbajan,Kumble and agarkar along with Dhoni deserves a special.The Srilankan performance was marred by missed opportunities on the field.Their top order failed to convert good starts and their bowlers were unable to dismiss the Indian Lower order.
The Srilankans would like to forget the Indian tour as they were thrashed 6-1 in the oneday series and were beaten 2-0 in the test series pushing them to 7th in the ICC rankings.The Victory against the Srilankans and a creditable performance against the SouthAfricans in one-dayers should give India enough confidence to take on a confident Pakistan next month.
Kumble again was the man of the series with 20 wickets inching closer to the magical 500 mark.Harbhajan was declared the man of the match for his 10 wkt haul.
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After torrential rainfall had eaten into the first three days of the first test and most of the fourth day,the Indians put up a horrible display.There was nothing much to gain for both the teams,but enough time to inflict few psychological blows on each other.In the end we have to say that the Lankans came on top in whatever cricket was possible in Chennai.
Indian batting lacked any sort of application as everyone except for Dravid,Sehwag and Dhoni failed to cross 30 run mark.The much awaited return of Sourav Ganguly was a disaster as he just contributed 5 runs to the total.Well overall the Lankans would be happy with their two premier bowlers Vass and Murali being the chief wicket-takers.
The Indians have to come in with better performance in the second test to win the series which could see them jump second on the ICC test ranking.
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Torrential rain fall in chennai made sure that the first days play between India and Srilanka be abandoned without a ball being bowled.Its highly unlikely that any play would be possible on the second day too as more downpour has been predicted.
If and when the play starts the main focus would not be the match itself but whether Ganguly will make it to the final X1 or not.Ganguly’s selection in the first test match has raised a few eyebrows considering the form of Yuvraj Singh with Kaif waiting in the wings.Sourav being chosen as a Batting allrounder makes it clear that the selectors are not confident about his batting ability.The other interesting situation for the media would be the interaction between Sourav and Chappell after their clash in the Zim tour.
The Indian team with a young side have done wonderfully well in the one-day series against both south Africa and Srilanka.The most noticable aspect of the Indian performance was their much improved fielding which was brilliant at times.The Bowling and batting though needs to be more consistant in order to have a serious crack at the World Cup.
India go into the test series against Srilanka with an opportunity to become the second best team in the ICC rankings provided they beat the islanders by the margin of 1-0 or 2-1(Srilanka can topple the Indians from 3rd position by defeating them).The Srilankans have everything to play for after their humiliating 1-6 loss to Indians in the one-day series.Overall it seems to be an interesting series with both the teams playing with some incentive but nothing can match the excitement of whether or not sourav will make it to the final X1.
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