India would do well to conduct a crash course in tackling the moving ball by holding a camp at the HPCA Stadium here prior to the team’s departure to South Africa. If not for M.S. Dhoni drawing on his experience to compile a fighting half-century the host would have been further embarrassed in the first ODI of the current series against Sri Lanka.
The seven-wicket win for Sri Lanka came with 176 balls to spare and that was the overwhelming difference between the teams. The match witnessed an 11.30 a.m. start to counter the dew factor which, thanks to India’s miserable performance, did not even come into play.
It is another matter that Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar gave some indications of how they could make the ball talk in favourable conditions. But the prime concerns regarding the old Indian fallibility against the seaming ball stood glaringly exposed on a lively pitch after Sri Lanka rightly opted to bowl. Strangely, Rohit Sharma, making his debut as a captain, professed a diametrically opposite view, saying he would have loved to bat first.
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There was enough lateral movement to test the batting technique but the Indians looked woefully inadequate and out of place. The way some of the batsmen were squared up by the Lankan seamers must give sleepless nights to assistant coach Sanjay Bangar, who was adept at handling seam and swing. Bangar has worked hard with this set of batsmen but the sight of them losing their wickets one after another was not pleasant at all.
Dhoni gave the Indian resistance some respectability with a knock that brought back memories of his heyday when he would carry the innings on his shoulders in the company of tail-enders. Dhoni loves such situations when he is pitted alone against an army of performing bowlers. This was the stage that he dominated for so long and he relived some of those brilliant times on Sunday with an innings that reflected his character — strong and unflinching.
Sri Lankan paceman Suranga Lakmal, also the ‘Man of the match’, rattled the Indians the way he had in the first hour of the first Test at Kolkata. He is a bowler who is invigorated with an early success and comes hard at the batsmen with his crafty work with the new ball.
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The seam movement was directed with the aim to make the batsmen play. There were plenty of edges as India’s best batsmen looked clueless against Lakmal, who bowled unchanged.
It was Lakmal versus India and he won hands down. After Angelo Mathews got Shikhar Dhawan off the 12th ball of the morning with a ball that swung in, Lakmal triggered the disintegration of the Indian innings with three strikes — Rohit to an away moving ball, Dinesh Karthik to one that nipped in and squaring up Manish Pandey.
At 16 for four, India lay bruised and battered and three more wickets in the span of 23 balls left the large turnout disillusioned with their heroes.
In Dhoni, the Indian dressing room found a man who chose to fight. He shielded his partners, picked the odd-ball to punish, and remained committed to his job with some excellent footwork to ‘kill’ the movement off the pitch. His knock apart there was nothing for India to cherish as a spirited Sri Lanka thoroughly exposed the brittle technique of the home batsmen.
The target of 112 was hardly a challenge. True, Sri Lanka lost two early wickets and ought to have been three down but for Bumrah bowling a wicket-taking no-ball to Upul Tharanga when he was on 11. The left-handed opener mocked at the attack with a 49-ball assault with 10 boundaries as Sri Lanka cantered home in style.