Indian batsmen finish ODI series and year 2009 on a high
The one day series between India and Sri Lanka ended on expected lines for India. The might of Indian batting was too much to handle for a depleted Sri Lankan bowling up comprising of bowlers of the likes of Welegadara. One really cannot blame the inexperienced Sri Lankan bowlers because even the likes of Muralidharan and company were not spared by the rampaging Indian batsmen in the Test Series.
Sachin Tendulkar once again reinforced his status as the best batsman in the world scoring the maximum number of runs in the one day series for India. Sachin Tendulkar scored 216 runs for India at an average of 72.00 at almost a run a ball. The support cast did a excellent job with Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virat Kolhi as all of them were in great form averaging in excess of 50 in the series with decent strike rates.
The bowlers on expected lines went for lot of runs. Zaheer Khan though picked up 7 wickets in the series but averaged 40 per wicket and finished with a economy rate of 6.22. The bowling average and economy rates would have been far higher had he not got that couple of wickets on a treacherous pitch in the final one dayer. Ashish Nehera was even worse as he averaged 46.50 at an economy rate of 6.91. The nightmares for Ishant Sharma and Praveen Kumar continued as they averaged 65 and 115 runs per wicket respectively at high economy rates of 9.28 and 6.76. While Ishant Sharma and Praveen Kumar were rightly dropped for their poor performances with the ball, Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra are very fortunate. The duo are very fortunate to keep their places and also have a chance to improve their bowling averages and economy rates when they get to play a weak Bangladesh team. There will be lot of free wickets in Bangladesh as Bangladesh do not have a decent batting line up. If that is not enough Bangladeshi batsman are known to throw their wickets away.
Indian batsmen have once again dominated one dayers this year with Mahendra Singh Dhoni becoming the highest run getter in the world with 1198 runs. Sachin Tendulkar missed out on becoming the second Indian and seventh batsmen in 2009 to score 1000 runs for the year as he finished the year with 972 runs. Sachin Tendulkar had an opportunity to reach 1000 runs for the year, had he scored 28 runs in the final ODI but decided to opted out in the interests of the team so that others may get a chance in a match where the result did not have any consequence as far as India in concerned. In the end Sachin's sacrifice went in vain as the one dayer was called of due to bad pitch conditions. Sachin must consider himself doubly unlucky as first he was deneid a 100 by Dinesh Karthik and then missing out on 1000 runs for the year. Apart from the duo of Dhoni and Sachin, all Indian batsmen had a good year in one dayers with Gambhir, Sehwag and Yuvraj scoring 848, 810 and 783 runs respectively.
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