On Saturday in Colombo, a pair of cricket giants locked horns against each other. The defending champions, Australia, took on the runners up from last time — Sri Lanka. But then rain intervened.
When the Aussies won in 2007, their cricket was on the move. It consisted of some powerful players and also conditions were different in Barbados.
This time around, it’s a case of role reversal as its Sri Lanka who have been on the ascendancy. They have improved their skills, become stronger player wise and most importantly, they are on home turf.
The key tactics have transformed too. Previously, it was about who bowled well, this time round it is a question of who bats well will win.
The sides were well equipped and blessed in the respective bowling departments and no doubt Australia tried to focus their strategy to win via their seam attack with some assistance from the spinners.
Equally, the hosts went the opposite way.
In their last outing, Sri Lanka was shocked by Pakistan on a pitch where spinners dominated, whilst the first fixture saw the ball flying through for the quicks and shape for the seamers.
Sri Lanka won the toss and as expected went to bat against the holders. This is another examination of their credentials after the Pakistan defeat. The wicket looked likely to deteriorate and favour spinners, which resulted in Sri Lanka playing three frontline slow bowlers, and rely on Malinga’s reverse swing expertise.
The early wicket of Tillakaratne Dilshan gave Australia an ideal start. Tait came out guns blazing and won the short battle with precision planning. Dilshan’s strengths are to play his shots by creating space, however, he was tempted time and again outside the off stump with away swing and when he was expecting a shorter one, Tait held his line and got a flayed snick to second slip. Kudos to Tait!
Evergreen Brett Lee scalped a stunned Tharanga’s wicket when a short one was hit out of the screws towards gully, where Steve Smith leapt like a salmon to grasp an excellent catch.
At 31-2, the need of the time was to start a foundation and this saw the engine room of Sri Lankan batting come together.
Sangakkara and Jayewardene are the glue that holds their side together in times of crisis and they had moved along to 76 in comfort before disaster struck. Mahela pushed the ball into the covers and his teammate hesitated somewhat which lead to a key moment in the innings as replays proved Mahela short of his crease as Steve Smith’s pinpoint throw hit the stumps first.
These three wickets were just the tonic the Aussies needed and gave them intensity. Unfortunately, the genius of Sangakkara stood firm.
His approach with Samaraweera steadied the ship, rotating the strike and finding a boundary pushed the score up to 146/3 before rain spoilt eveything.
There had been debate on Samaraweera’s inclusion, however, the logic of having an experienced man who could rotate the strike and stand firm on a turning track proved correct. Ricky was excellent but the only trick he missed was the over reliance on Watson and late introduction of smith. This in my opinion helped Sri Lankan cause. But anyhow it was intriguing stuff and was really great to watch before it rained and the teams had to share a point each.
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