India Tour Of Sri Lanka 2021

[wasteyouryouth]

Yuzvendra Chahal, K Gowtham test positive for Covid-19 in Sri Lanka

Prithvi Shaw and Suryakumar Yadav cleared to fly to England directly from Sri Lanka

www.espncricinfo.com

Get your Krunal Pandya memes out

 

[icyman]

Defeat isn't a concern, the mannerism of defeat is always the concern. India has a tendency of losing with versus mystery spinners- Akila, Ajantha and now Hasaranga. Pretty shoddy performance I'd say.

Before any of you jump the gun and say this was an India-C/D side, I agree! However, the premise here is that these guys are supposedly good in the IPL and hence have made it this far. To not to be able to score against a weak Lankan side raises question marks on their base technique- especially when Lanka chased down 83 comfortably.

Furthermore, want to call out Dhawan and Samson for their 'EFFORTS'- these two did absolutely nothing whilst being senior pros in the current setup. While Dhawan has had a good career and can hang up his boots, Samson was the biggest disappointment. To be given so many chances and failing to capitalise on any raises serious question marks over his ability to represent India in the future.

 

[SaiSrini]

Defeat isn't a concern, the mannerism of defeat is always the concern. India has a tendency of losing with versus mystery spinners- Akila, Ajantha and now Hasaranga. Pretty shoddy performance I'd say.

Before any of you jump the gun and say this was an India-C/D side, I agree! However, the premise here is that these guys are supposedly good in the IPL and hence have made it this far. To not to be able to score against a weak Lankan side raises question marks on their base technique- especially when Lanka chased down 83 comfortably.

Furthermore, want to call out Dhawan and Samson for their 'EFFORTS'- these two did absolutely nothing whilst being senior pros in the current setup. While Dhawan has had a good career and can hang up his boots, Samson was the biggest disappointment. To be given so many chances and failing to capitalise on any raises serious question marks over his ability to represent India in the future.

The T20I series defeat does not raise any concern whatsoever. If anything, it gave a good international level work experience to these young blokes who have been earmarked as the future. You have 7-8 players being isolated due to COVID and then you hurriedly schedule 2 T20I's back to back in consecutive days so that you can wash your hands quickly off the tour and get the players back to their homes in a chaotic scenario like this. Such scenarios cannot be used to judge anything at all... If you ask me, I would really compliment the Indian side for accepting to play the last 2 T20I's in back to back days in order to finish off the tour and safely return back home as soon as possible. Just imagine their mental setup where they have seen a COVID case in their camp and players being isolated and they have to complete the 2 games quickly and leave?

Due credit to Sri Lanka too, for having the players to exploit the conditions (although I felt Dhawan chose to bat first in the final T20I to give a workout to the boys in challenging conditions; if he was even a little serious, he probably would've chosen to chase).

I agree on the 'Samson' assessment though. Whether he is unlucky or his mental state is just not in alignment with international rigours, is something that cant be judged. He will struggle to get consistent opportunities in a country like India even if he has 2-3 massive IPL seasons because of the riches that we are seeing in this generation...

 

[icyman]

You have 7-8 players being isolated due to COVID and then you hurriedly schedule 2 T20I's back to back in consecutive days so that you can wash your hands quickly off the tour and get the players back to their homes in a chaotic scenario like this. Such scenarios cannot be used to judge anything at all... If you ask me, I would really compliment the Indian side for accepting to play the last 2 T20I's in back to back days in order to finish off the tour and safely return back home as soon as possible. Just imagine their mental setup where they have seen a COVID case in their camp and players being isolated and they have to complete the 2 games quickly and leave?

The position that we were in, there was no real requirement to finish the tour. Why did we stay back? We do not need to prove that we are supermen nor do we need the empathies of other boards who laud us for finishing. Reality is , COVID struck, we ought to have taken the next flight out of Lanka, given that the bubble wasn't at all secure.

Now coming to the performance- I really don't get this- Why can't we judge the players? Didn't we play with a depleted side in Australia? No one raised these concerns back then. Agreed, the team wasn't hit by COVID< but the team was rapidly losing its most valuable players back then. Still, our young guns rose to the occasion and won the matches.

The side chosen for SRL games was full of IPL superstars/emerging players. Its a cause of concern if you cannot replicate your form for your country. Its a cause of concern that IPL stars arent able to live up to the demands of a 'competitive game'. It does raise concerns on the kind of players that may represent the country one day. Also raises potential questions on the Selectors who have simply been picking players based on their IPL stalwarts.

All we asked for was a 'fight'. I didn't see that happen.

 

[NILAYSHAH60]

The position that we were in, there was no real requirement to finish the tour. Why did we stay back? We do not need to prove that we are supermen nor do we need the empathies of other boards who laud us for finishing. Reality is , COVID struck, we ought to have taken the next flight out of Lanka, given that the bubble wasn't at all secure.

Now coming to the performance- I really don't get this- Why can't we judge the players? Didn't we play with a depleted side in Australia? No one raised these concerns back then. Agreed, the team wasn't hit by COVID< but the team was rapidly losing its most valuable players back then. Still, our young guns rose to the occasion and won the matches.

The side chosen for SRL games was full of IPL superstars/emerging players. Its a cause of concern if you cannot replicate your form for your country. Its a cause of concern that IPL stars arent able to live up to the demands of a 'competitive game'. It does raise concerns on the kind of players that may represent the country one day. Also raises potential questions on the Selectors who have simply been picking players based on their IPL stalwarts.

All we asked for was a 'fight'. I didn't see that happen.

I agree with the rest of the things in your post but we should also look at the fact that we only played with 4 specialist batters and a WK batsman that too under tough batting conditions. We don't usually get such surfaces in IPL that were on offer. Also, it is not just about performing in IPL but also about how the players are groomed. Let us analyse the batting line-up we had in the last 2 T20s

Ruturaj
Dhawan
Sanju
Paddikal
Rana
Bhuvi
Saini/ Warrior
Kuldeep
Chahar
Chakravarthy
Sakaria

I think I can say that I was disappointed with Ruturaj since he has looked a reliable batsman for CSK in the last 2 seasons and he is also used to playing on turning surfaces with truck load of experience that he got playing for India A. Sanju, I never really rated him highly even when it comes to IPL so no surprises he has failed to achieve anything worthy in this series. Paddikal, I believe he hasn't really played on slow surfaces and his record also proves that he isn't someone who builds on his innings and is rather someone who goes after the bowling from the word go. And such players really don't have anything to provide on surfaces like the ones we played on plus he wasn't opening the batting. Rana hasn't been in the best of forms in the last 3-4 seasons in IPL and neither he has been very impressive after that wonderful season he had with the Mumbai Indians back in 2017. We can't really expect pure bowlers to deliver with the bat for us. Bhuvi I think did really well both with the bat and with the ball apart from his last over in the 2nd T20I.

Sandeep Warrior has been a really good bowler for Kerala in last few years and has done equally well for Tamil Nadu this year. But, he hasn't really got opportunites to play in a competitive match like the IPL. So I think he did pretty ok on his debut.

Now, the other question was-
Why didn't we call out our tour when we lost our players to Covid isolation?

See sometimes it is also about maintaining good relations with the board and you would know that both BCCI and SLC have really good relations for many many years. So we really couldn't have done that. It was equally about the board's reputation to say the least. Cancelling the tour was a bit of an insult to Sri Lanka Cricket. We just fulfilled our commitment since we were still in a position to offer something.

 

[icyman]

Why didn't we call out our tour when we lost our players to Covid isolation?

See sometimes it is also about maintaining good relations with the board and you would know that both BCCI and SLC have really good relations for many many years. So we really couldn't have done that. It was equally about the board's reputation to say the least. Cancelling the tour was a bit of an insult to Sri Lanka Cricket. We just fulfilled our commitment since we were still in a position to offer something.

SLC needs to maintain good relations with India. The way the game has been played/marketed, shows that the BCCI has the upper hand when it comes to controlling of finances. Walking away from SLC would. in no way have harmed the BCCI. Heck! You are talking of a board that had taken on the ICC in the early 2000s -when we weren't at our peak-remember Mike Denness incident? Remember the ICC CT 2002, where we almost walked out the last moment? Remember the Harbhajan episode which almost saw the Aussie tour getting scrapped? Remember the recent Aussie series and the Brisbane quarantine?

One more thing- cancelling the tour wouldn't have been an insult to SLC! When a player contracts COVID under the SLC bio-bubble, any damn board in the world has the right to pull out!