Forgettable win for Sri Lanka
Sri Lankans won the recently concluded triangular series beating India in the final at Dambulla by 74 runs. Once Sri Lankans got to 299 in their stipulated 50 overs it was a foregone conclusion that the tri series was theirs because it needed another superhuman effort from Sehwag and that it would have been too much to expect of him as he had already done it twice in the tournament and once Sehwag got out for 28 the only point of interest left in the match was India batting out the 50 overs to reduce the margin of defeat.
This has been a forgettable tri series for all the three teams involved because nobody deserved to win. There were no close games and all the three teams New Zealand, India and eventual winners Sri Lanka were thrashed badly in the matches they lost. Indians in particular would like to forget this as they were bowled out for less than 100 once and just managed to avoid a repeat. The fact that India lost their opening match to a third string New Zealand team by 200 runs should hurt them for years.
Interestingly for India, the three men who plotted to deny Sehwag a well deserved century plotted India's defeat in the finals and the only difference was while they used foul means to deny Sehwag a century they plotted India's doom by fair means. While Tilakratne Dilshan's century gave Sri Lanka a good foundation, skipper Sangakkara's 71 took them close to a winning total on a pitch helpful to bowlers. Suraj Randiv who bowled the no ball to deny a century came up trumps in the end finishing with 3 wickets including the final one of skipper Dhoni to herald Sri Lanka as tri series champions.
Indians lost the plot even before a single ball was bowled in the tournament. Sachin's absence was a huge blow as no one is technically better equipped in the world than him to counter conditions which was helpful to the bowlers and Sachin Tendulkars exploits against bowlers on helpful conditons are stuff of folklore. Had Sachin been playing he could have been assigned the task of batting out the overs with the others playing around him and his reputation to counter attack bowlers on tracks helpful to them could have put Sri Lankans on the back foot. However that was not be and Sehwag though did a great job in Sachin's absence it would have been expecting too much of him to play the anchor cum destroyer role in every single match. With other seniors like Dhoni and Yuvraj not firing youngsters who were accustomed to playing support roles in batting friendly pitches came a cropper. While Virat Kolhi averaged 15, Suresh Raina averaged 13, Jadeja 12.33, Karthik 6.6 and what was worse the most talented of them all Rohit Sharma averaged a mere 5. The situation was so bad that none of them between Kolhi, Raina, Jadeja, Karthik and Rohit Sharma could manage a half century and the highest they aggregated between than was 37.
It is time for India to review the situation with not much of time left for the 2011 World Cup.
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