Friday, July 08, 2011

It’s the deciding match between England and Sri Lanka

The preceding four ODIs have not been closely-fought contests, with both sides winning comfortably on two occasions each. Much of that has to do with the conditions that those games were played in. England benefited from two cloudy days in their two wins, on livelier wickets that helped their pace attack. The sun shone in Sri Lanka’s wins and may do so again in Manchester for the final match.

But they will be coming off a 10-wicket mauling by the English in the last match. Alastair Cook has had a good outing in this series with the bat, scoring an unbeaten 95 in the last game, following on from his century, albeit in a losing cause, in the third. He is now the leading run-scorer in the series with 267 runs, 30 more than former Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardena.

The current captain of the tourists, Thillakaratne Dilshan, is struggling for form, however, having made just 13 in four outings. Vice captain Thilina Kandamby is also finding it hard to score runs in the series and may face competition for his spot in the final ODI.

Pace bowler Suranga Lakmal might also miss out thanks to injury, so we could see a different Lankan side taking to the field for the deciding encounter. England, conversely, are likely to remain unchanged. There were quite a few doubts about Stuart Broad’s performance, after going wicketless in the first three games, but he took two in the fourth ODI.

This series has been an important one for both sides. England are widely regarded to be much better in Tests than in the one-day game, and they now have a new one-day captain in Cook, who was appointed after England had a less than spectacular World Cup. Sri Lanka, too, have a new captain and this is the first real test for the ODI team after finishing runners-up during the World Cup, where they knocked out England in the quarter-finals. All things considered, then, it should be a great contest between these two island nations.

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Windies and India draw swords for 3rd Test

Both sides will be going for a win, but the Windies will be all the more desperate as they trailing in the series 1-0, while India, the number one team in Test cricket, will not want to go down to their weaker hosts.

Dominica will host its first ever Test match in the capital Roseau and the organisers will hope to get an uninterrupted debut match, although the weather may be a bit of an issue; July is the wettest month on the island and the forecast is not that great, but here’s hoping for the best.

The West Indies were quite competitive in the drawn second Test and the players will go into Dominca gunning for victory. They will be short of Ramnaresh Sarwan, who has been dropped by the West Indies Cricket Board, with Kieran Powell taking his place. Sarwan has had a poor run in this series - and earlier against Pakistan - having made just 29 runs in four innings. Powell is untried in the Test arena, although he does have a first-class century to his name, made earlier this year against the English Lions.

Rahul Dravid has termed the pitches on this tour as some of the toughest that he has faced and said that they have really tested the younger players. Dravid has had the best time of any batsman, however, and is the leading run-scorer with 212. He is also the only one so far to have scored a century in the series.

The top three run-scorers are all Indians, with Suresh Raina in third place. He has had a good run in the Tests, with a second half-century in the last match. Virat Kohli, on the other hand, has continued to struggle and will be eager to make the next match count even if he was not included in the squad for the tour of England.

Ishant Sharma looked good in the last match, with career best figures of 6/55 in the first innings and 10/108 in the match, which also bodes well for the tour of England. He is the leading wicket-taker in the series with 16, followed by two West Indians - Ravi Rampaul (13) and Devendra Bishoo (10). Rampaul has shown himself capable of removing batsmen early on in the innings, and the West Indies’ bowling has been pretty good throughout, but they do need their batsmen to start contributing.

Much of the talk surrounding the entire tour has focussed on the absence of several top Indian players and Chris Gayle, but there is a final chance for those participating to make something of the final match of the series.