New Delhi, January 05: India had a pretty good 2009 if one doesn’t take into account the two ICC tournaments that were played in the year. The defending champions in the T20 format did not even qualify for the knockout stage of the tournament in England and then in South Africa they again struggled to get through the first round.
Apart from these hiccups they had a very good year in the bilateral tours and dominated those tours. They will thus be looking to begin 2010 in a similar fashion and winning the tri-nations tournament would be a good way to get the year off to a rocking start. Having just played Sri Lanka they know that even without the two J’s — Jayasuriya and Jayawardene — the Lankans are a good outfit and are always tough opponents. The youngsters in the Lankan team, especially the bowlers, have shown in the one-day series in India that with a bit of experience they will be hard to get away.
Lakmal, Welegedera, Randiv have bowled well in patches in the just- concluded series in India and Sangakkara will be hoping that another confrontation with the Indians will give the finishing touches and make them better bowlers for the future.
With Muralitharan not looking to go beyond 2011, the Lankans will need to look for bowlers who can pick wickets on any surface as the magician Murali used to do. They also are missing the canny bowling of Chaminda Vaas who swung the new ball and also used the slower delivery well in the limited overs format and was also pretty handy with the bat.
Like the Lankans, the Indians too are without their most experienced player in the limited overs cricket, Sachin Tendulkar, but they have the services of Yuvraj Singh who was not fully fit for the series against Sri Lanka. The Indians still have a formidable batting line-up and in the bowling too they have lots of experience and wickets behind them in Zaheer, Nehra and Harbhajan Singh.
It is their fielding that is the worry though with the likes of Yuvraj, Raina and Rohit Sharma in the squad it can be electrifying too.
The pitch at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium has some grass on it and with the winter having settled in there is scope for the new-ball bowlers to use the seam well whether it is bowling first or later under the lights. It won’t be the flat pitches that were on offer in India but pitches where bowlers can get something.
The winter air will also mean not as much energy expended as in India, so all told the bowlers may not feel hopeless as they were in India. Still it’s a limited overs tournament and the game can change in a matter of overs. India will be the favourites because of the experience that they have in both batting and bowling, but limited-overs cricket has made fools of all the pundits in the past too.
–Agencies–