Sri Lanka- A Talented Bunch

As the tour of India ended on a bouncy pitch, Sri Lanka skipper Kumar Sangakkara may well wonder why his team lost to India despite possessing one of the strongest batting line-ups ever to leave his country’s shores.

Himself among the top two or three batsmen in the world and having in the ranks players of the calibre of Jayasurya, Tharanga, Dilshan and Mahela Jayawardene to name just a handful, Sangakkara had every reason to feel that fate had not been kind to his team.

Sri Lanka lost the Test series 2-0, drew the twenty-20 competition and was well and truly beaten by the end of the fourth One-Dayer at Kolkata, leaving only a dead rubber to be decided at Delhi.. And that despite Dilshan Tharanga and Sangakkara nearly always scoring big runs and Mahela Jayawardene hitting top form in the Opening Test Match at Ahmedabad with a double century. In fact in that Test Match, another Jayawardene, Prasana, also spoke up strongly with a century to help Sri Lanka score well over 700 runs to put India in a corner.

That India finally managed to save the Test was largely due to a fighting century by Tendulkar in the second innings.

In many ways the Sri Lankan more than matched the Indian ranks. Its batting was on level grade with India with Sangakkara rated as highly as any of the Indian stars and Murlitharan by reputation, the greatest spinner in the world. And as under study to Murli the Lankans recent discovery, Mendes had the backing of history of success against the Indians in the home series. The Sri Lankan team did not have Chaminda Vaas in the pace department but what it had in place was a set of youngsters who had made great strides in the fast bowling field.

In sharp contrast India could only lend its weight in the batting area. The bowling was suspect and the fielding was anyway atrocious. This was one aspect the Sri Lankans could always claim to be better than India though on this tour it was sometimes as bad as India’s. In fact, the teams often vied with each other in their gifts to the batsmen.

Thus, player for player the Sri Lankan team often boasted of a better balance but where it possibly faltered was in the mental frame.

India was the tougher combination and certainly more experienced as a team. But for all that, despite the 2-0 margin in the Test matches and the 3-1 score at the end of the fourth ODI, the Sri Lankan team put up a much closer fight than that indicated by the overall score line. In fact it exposed a lot of chinks in the Indian armour. Both the teams need to close the gaps before venturing into the New Year.

- Asian Tribune -