CricDigs Blogs

Though Sri Lanka has a strong ODI team and were the WC finalists last year, I don’t think Indian batsmen tried their best to post a big total in the 29 overs alloted to them. At some point it looked as if Dhoni and Rohit Sharma were still playing the match they had played two days ago against Australia. There was no sense of urgency to pile on as many runs as possible. Their effort looked too well controlled for that situation.

Sachin had provided India with a decent start. I say Sachin because Sehwag seems to be going to back to his last year’s self. The one aggressive shot that he connected ended up costing him the wicket. It looked like a very planned dismissal. To add insult to injury, Jaysuriya hammered Sreesanth for a towering six in the same region.

One example that will describe the “take it easy” attitude would be the fact that after hitting Murali for a Six on the first ball of an over, India managed to make only 2 more runs on the remaining 5 balls. That is just wrong. If you hit a six on the very first ball of an over, at least 11 runs should be scored (one each on the remaining 5 balls). I really think that Dhoni and Rohit still had the hangover from their earlier innings against Australia. There were couple reasons for frustration about that approach. First of all, despite having all these wickets in hand, not enough runs were put up on the board to put any significant pressure on the Lankans and secondly, players like Yuvraj and Uthappa did not get to spend time out there to get some form.

Hopefully, in the next match, Indian team comes out with more passion and energy and last but not the least, the Indian bowlers control their stride and not give all these no-balls and the free-hits that follow them.