Dhoni and team posted a comfortable victory over Srilanka in the 4th ODI on the reserve day to make history. This is India's first ever ODI series win in SriLanka. It was an all round effort from the Indians with important contributions from Kholi,Dhoni,Raina,Munaf,Zaheer and Harbhajan. For SriLanka the top order failed to fire yet again to put up a chase of a seemingly moderate Indian total. Dhoni and team was desperate to win the series as they have lost 2 ODI tournament in the recent past (kitply & AsiaCup).
V.Kholi provided the start India needed with a solid half century but quickly India was in trouble losing 3 quick wickets. Dhoni and Raina put up a 100+ partnership to reach a respectable total. Dhoni is proving to be a very good batsmen in the recent past with some mature innings and its a real good sign that we have a batsmen who can put his head down and also pep-up run rate when the run rate goes down and when the batsmen is your team captain the whole team confidence goes up. Raina is also gaining in confidence match after match to play some brilliant innings to prove that he is here to stay. Youraj is just out of sorts and not among runs and may be he need to come bit late in the order so that he can free his arms and get back the much needed runs. As expected the lower order Badrinath,Sharma did not have many overs to settle down to get big runs, this is the reason one has to grab the chances that come your way to stay in the thick of action. Once Sachin and Sehwag is back in the team, i doubt if badrinath and sharma will have a place in the playing 11 or even in the team.
The fast bowlers in Munaf,Zaheer and Pravinkumar played their part to perfection in all the 4 matches. Munaf has been splendid with lot of control in the line and length and has been among the wickets, i have always felt that he is a good bowler and little lazy in the out field but watching him in the IPL gave us think differently on him and he proved he can be very good if used properly. Zaheer has been a lot more fit and willing to give the extra effort and that was visible in his bowling figures through out the series. PravinKumar IMO is a ordinary bowler but has a big heart to fight it out, he has been belted for runs in this series but was lucky enough to pick wickets at crucial stages of the game. Harbhajan has been fantastic through out the series both in Test and ODI with lot more flight and direction but the over exuberance at times in the middle is not doing any good.
Over all we have a wonderful,young team in good hands and can wish for some good times in the coming years in the ODI tournaments.
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3 comments:
Great to see the Indians win a ODI series in this fashion in SL. Generally we tend to keep thing unsure till the final match of the series, in my memory I am not able to remember when the Indians won a series with one match still remaining.
It really feels great to win a series sans some of your best players(Sachin & Shewag). And also we have rested Ishant. We have not fielded our full strength here, would love to see it in future series without any injury worries. Hope Sachin gets fit soon to serve the Indian team another couple of years.
@vasu Regarding Munaf its the magic of Shane Warne thats played on him. He looks a much more confident while he takes the ball than he used to be a year back. IPL doing some good to the Indian cricket.
Yes IPL has done a lot of good to the youngsters with the confidence that they can take the big guys.
Raina has mentioned in the post match interview that IPL has made him a better cricketer with respect to positive thinking.
This young team is real bunch of confidence players and when Dhoni is in form, he takes total control of the team and that translates into victory most of the time. Hope this set of players are there around till the WC-2011
Yeah.. as pointed by Abimanyu, india used to take the series to the final match and lose. Its good to see them win a series quite comfortably. Also, regarding Munaf, the change in his body language is very very evident. Before, he used to be very indifferent on the field. Now, his fielding has improved. And more importantly, his willingness to field has improved by leaps and bounds. Surely, Shane Warne's influence is teh reason for this.
In that way, the IPL has brought our young cricketers face-to-face with some legends and helped them improve a lot. Quite good time ahead for the Indian team, if the youngsters dont get carried over and apply themselves properly. The coach and captain has a lot of work to do, to maintain this balance.
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