Indian Tour of Sri Lanka & Triangular Series, July-August 2010

[SaiSrini]

Wonderful bowling by Ojha. Finally getting in there, when we needed it most. Sanga and Jayawardena, the big fishes have been snapped up for very cheap. Hope we can continue on this work and bowl SL out as low a total as possible. Matthews could be a thorn along with Samaraweera. We need both of them out early.

India in the driver's seat. Keep it boys!

 

[sohum]

Mathews pays for his over-aggression. :laugh

 

[SaiSrini]

Two wickets for India where we should have had none:laugh Both got out to very ordinary shots. The ball that got Matthews was a full toss from Mishra.

Holy god, holy god!! Prasanna gone first balL!!! 87/7. SL are collapsing here badly. WOW WOW WOW!

 

[sohum]

Mishy on a hat-trick. My first reaction was too high.

sohum added 0 Minutes and 39 Seconds later...

Sri Lanka in tatters now. Need to keep pushing and not let a rear-guard action take place.

 

[SaiSrini]

Got to go for the kill here. Dhoni needs to take the bull by the horns. Chasing a target of 100 odd would be awesome for India (if we can bowl SL out that cheaply).

 

[Gaurav_7]

Counter attack by SL working well for them. Ishant should get a bowl from other end with Ojha bowling from one end. Mishra seems pretty easy to attack and Malinga is enjoying.

 

[Owzat]

Sri Lanka conceded too many runs for the last wicket, the last three Indian wickets added 86 and put pressure on the Sri Lankans. Sri Lanka will struggle to win this one without having one half of the chucka brothers, although there are signs from Malinga that the Sri Lankan tail will wag better than 1st innings

India put on 64 for the 7th wicket, Sri Lanka's last five batsmen scored just 28 runs between them although they did add 95 for those wickets with Samaraweera doing the bulk of the scoring as he may have to repeat this innings. I'd reckon 200 might give Sri Lanka a chance, but the Indian batting is surely too strong to be skittled for much less than that - even in defeat they didn't score less than 250

 

[SaiSrini]

Thank god we didnt let Malinga do an encore of Galle. But Samaraweera looks threatening. Hope we get him out soon after lunch and wrap things up.

SL now seem to go for the broke, trying to add as many runs as possible.

 

[aditya123]

Fascinating match so far. Curators must understand that this is what we can get when given a decent test match pictch, unlike those roads that we get very often around the world these days.

 

[Gaurav_7]

Yeah, this test so far has been a treat to watch. Both the teams have an even chance still despite SL score not looking too much.

 

[ZexyZahid]

With Sri Lanka only having a lead of 132 runs and 2 wickets remaining this match is India's to lose.

From the scorecard I can see the pitch has turned into the favour of spinners. I reckon Mendis is a decent spinner, but I am not sure whether they will get enough support from Randiv or Dilshan.

 

[Gaurav_7]

Actually I find Randiv more of a threat as compared to Mendis.

 

[aditya123]

A word of praise for Ishant after all the stick he has been getting. The guy showed superb intensity and ran in hard and hit teh deck hard today. I feel he was the best bowler in the first session and helped build pressure on Randiv and Sanga to start off the day. He is now on the right track if he can keep bowling this way but I fear for him if he starts playing too many ODIs again.

 

[Flame_Blader1]

Actually I find Randiv more of a threat as compared to Mendis.

This!

Randiv gets a lot of bounce and those type of spinners are gonna be hard to deal with. Mishra got a few wickets yes but he didn't look all that threatening. If they can survive Randiv then we have a really good chance to win this.

Also yea Ishant has looked really good this whole test match.

 

[SaiSrini]

A word of praise for Ishant after all the stick he has been getting. The guy showed superb intensity and ran in hard and hit teh deck hard today. I feel he was the best bowler in the first session and helped build pressure on Randiv and Sanga to start off the day. He is now on the right track if he can keep bowling this way but I fear for him if he starts playing too many ODIs again.

Yes Ishant has bowled really well in this test match. After showing rustiness in the last two games, he seems to be slowly coming into his own. Can see the intent when he runs in and hits the deck hard. He is a must for South Africa and Australia where the pitches will be quite helpful for his bowling.

I am happy that our bowlers come to their own when the track is sporting. On a sporting wicket, our chances of winning increases rapidly. But our chance also rapidly decreases if we encounter a lifeless track. We got to somehow work on that. Zaheer also cant do anything on such tracks. We got to find workhorses who have lots of variations and tricks up their sleeve.