Unforgettable match!! Nightmare for indian batsman!!

India’s bad record of Final remains the same as before as they lost yet another important final . Eight years ago, , Sanath Jayasuriya scored a magnificent 189 before Sri Lanka’s bowlers sent India tumbling to 54 all out, and a humiliating 245-run defeat.And at Karachi now he is 39 scored a superb century and stunning bowling by Mendis put India to yet another humiliating defeat by 100 runs. Mendis created a history in Asia Cup as he took 6 wickets for 13 runs which was not done before this.

Well I thought sri lanka were good 30 runs short from the psychological target of 300+ and seems to be a cakewalk for India with its famed batting line up. First 8 overs actually went according to my expectation - all srilankan pace bowlers were wacked all around the park by sehwag until this guy mendis came. A new face in one day international cricket with an unorthodox bowling action as far as spin bowling is concerned, flights the ball in the air and the ball literally skids from the track generating that extra pace and trajectory thus beating the batsman in the air. All indian batsmen struggled against him and he provided breakthroughs at regular interval thus striking the spinal cord of india's line-up..majorly, almost paralysing it...Dhoni played a captains knock but all in vain and srilanka clinched the asia cup trophy 4th time, first time outside srilanka..That surely is an achievement and they really deserve a hard party!!

India definitely need to rethink and reconfigure its batting startegies before the coming up srilanka series.

Cheers:)
Anurag

ONE DAY - a batsman's game??

20/20 has started to show its effect on oneday international matches and a very recent example is the asian cup 2008 taking place in pakistan. Scoring 300+ runs in the first innings is becoming a norm, very soon 400+ would be considered to be a DECENT total. A team scoring less than that would be considered a weak team.

I know its a bit of exaggeration but I can see some team to go onto score 500(Again I am not saying this would happen tomorrow, may be it will never happen, but after seeing the way players like Jayasuriya, sehwag, yuvraj and Gambhir are improvising and scoring at such a rapid pace while playing genuine cricketing shots, 500 is definitely a possibility in the coming years.

Yesterday I saw the match between India and Srilanka and was a 300+ game, Srilanka scored a good 308 but as I said before times have changed so is the pace of the game, chasing down 300+ mammoth score 3 to 4 yrs back was supposed to be a tough ask but today..er..308 kinda score is chased down by India with 24 balls spared..
I m looking forward to the final match between India and Srilanka on sunday, god knows wat would be a safe taget on such flat pakistani wickets..maybe 350+ God knows!!

Feel free to express your thoughts.

Cheers:)
Anurag