India one battle away from breaking 15-year old ASIA CUP jinx
Still stunned by the the Maharoof-tsunami India aim to strike the counter-blow and fill in the 15-year void of claming the Asian Champions’ title.
Little would Kumar Sangakkara have known that Sri Lanka were in for a memorable match even after resting three front-line bowlers in the dead-rubber. The bench got the opportunity and their performance will surely give selection-headaches to the captain and the coach. Of course, Kumar Sangakkara will have no doubts on the re-inclusion of Lasith Malinga, Nuwan Kulasekara and Muttiah Muralidaran in the playing eleven but he will be extremely tempted to opt for Farveez Maharoof over Chanaka Welegedara after the former was dropped for the latter for the match against Bangladesh. Rangana Herath’s performance was praise-worthy and he might too be in the eye of the skipper as Angelo Mathews forms their 3rd seam bowling option, in case Maharoof and Welegedara, both, are not included. The skipper, himself, along with Mahela Jayawardena is in terrific touch and so are Upul Tharanga and Angelo Mathews and thus there is enough cushion in case Tillakaratne Dilshan gets dismissed early. The only worry for them is the number 5 spot which has been left open to Thilina Kandamby and Thilan Samaraweera, both have not impressed so far.
Even though India will be flabbergasted with what Maharoof did to them, MS Dhoni rightly said that it has not dented their confidence. But something that India will sorely miss is the blitz from Virender Sehwag at the top as he has fallen prey to yet another injury. They do have other batsmen to cover up and promise a good performance but the real concern for MS Dhoni will be the bowling department. The pace bowlers have leaked too many runs and haven’t been effective enough as far as break-throughs are concerned. He cannot rely on Harbhajan Singh alone as even Ravindra Jadeja has not proved himself to be a wicket-taking bowler. So, his best bet would be win the toss and field first. There are a few reasons that support this argument despite the fact that chasing under the task is ‘200 percent difficult’, as MS Dhoni quoted. Firstly, the bowlers haven’t looked good enough to be relied on to defend any total that the batters put up. Secondly, in this tournament India has won 2 games, both while chasing.
Well, Sri Lanka have the opportunity to score a hat-trick of Asia Cup wins while India has been starving for years now. The match will again be played at Dambulla which has quite a lot in it for the batsmen and not much for the bowlers. These two sides will be playing for the umpteenth time in recent times and they should be very well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each and every opposition player. The Castrol Index for Sri Lanka is 213 while that for India is 165 which indicates that the hosts have a better chance to emerge victorious. But India will take heart from the fact that they have done really well in Sri Lanka during the last couple of years, not only in individual matches but on a series-based level too and that should give them the confidence to make the contest even.
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