India meets Australia in vital match

Ranjan Anandappa in Australia

The Commonwealth Bank cricket series at last produced its first full game after two wash outs in Gabba with a comprehensive victory for Australia at SCG on Friday. The host nation now leads the table comfortably with 6 points and will meet a rejuvenated India today in a day night match at Melbourne with captain Ricky Ponting confident that the conditions in MCG would suit Australia better.

On the other hand, India with 4 points from two incomplete matches will be keen to register its first victory in the tournament. With Gambir and Dhoni returning to form and batting exceptionally well in the match against Sri Lanka- and with Sehwag and Tendulkar capable of tearing any attack apart on their day, India would be banking on their batting to overhaul the strong Australians to register their first win in the tournament. India's new look attack has variety and penetration; and is quite capable of containing the free scoring Aussies.

Sri Lanka, who failed to learn from the way the resourceful Australians batted on the sluggish SCG wicket, can only blame themselves for their pathetic batting display on Friday that caused not only the match, but also embarrassment. The island nation has a reputation as a powerful one-day team and is well respected as a powerful outfit. Sadly, Sri Lanka's approach to the run chase looked amateurish and unplanned.

From the outset of the match, Australians quickly gauged the pace of the wicket and assessed that any score of over 240 would be defendable. All their batsmen planned their innings meticulously taking minimum risks to post this par score or something above that which they did when they eventually reached 253.

Realising that, had they attempted to up the tempo to reach a higher score, they would have faced the risk of getting all out for a lesser score in the light of some good bowling and excellent fielding from the Sri Lankans, Australians gave a batting master class on how to accumulate runs to set a target. Even dashers like Gilchrist looked subdued and played according the situation.

The islanders looked very impressive in the field and did not bowl a single no ball for the entire match and fielded superbly. Mahela had the option of trying a few overs from one of the part-timers (Chamara Silva, Jayasuriya and Dilshan) as the fifth bowler- something the skipper didn't do for the reasons best known for himself, but it would not be fair to crucify him for this.

In the run chase, it appears that Sri Lankans were fooled by the weather and played as if they wanted to beat the rain and accumulate as many runs as quickly as possible in the event there will be rain interruptions where Duckworth Lewis would have come to play.

The pitch condition required accumulation of runs than all out attack and it was imperative that the full 50 overs had to be utilised to get the 254 runs for victory which was well within the reach, if accumulation was adopted as the strategy. The penalty was paid for not choosing the right strategy.

Though there were torrential rains on the previous two days in Sydney and some showers predicted on the morning of the match, in Australia the weather bureau keeps on updating the forecast on a regular basis and updated more accurate information is available to the public freely. By 6 p.m. when Australians completed their innings, the revised weather forecast for the rest of the day was that it would not rain and the match could therefore proceed without rain interruption.

If the fear of rains was the reason why Sri Lankans kept searching for quick runs even after losing Jayasuriya and Tharanga in consecutive deliveries, one has to only feel sorry for the skipper Mahela Jayawardena for not feeding him with the updated weather forecast. As the match progresses, it is up to the team management to make inquiries, search web sites, contact weather bureau to assess the updated forecast and provide that information to the skipper so that he would be in a better position to plan an appropriate strategy for the run chase.

It appears that this has not eventuated. No rain fell on Friday after the match started until its completion and Sri Lankans went on attacking blissfully ignorant of the weather forecast. I can only presume that this was the reason for committing harakiri on Friday night in the way they approached a run chase well within themselves. Hope Sri Lankans would learn for this mistake.