Well its official now, India and Australia will clash in the Best of 3 CB Series finals. And it is quite an apt one too, considering Sri Lanka has been down right mediocre, and India has looked the only team capable of challenging the Aussies. While most of the Australia-Sri Lanka matches have been one sided affairs, with Aussies steam rolling over the Lankans, all the India- Australia matches have been close encounters in which either team could have won.
Sri Lanka's dream run of 2006-07 seemed to have ended with the World Cup final in Barbados. Barring the usual meaningless victories over Bangladesh, their ODI performance has been downright dismal after the World Cup. The worst was losing 3-2 to England, hardly a champion one day side, and that too at home after leading 2-0. On the other hand after the World Cup fiasco, India seems to have picked up rather well. We won a 3 match series against S.Africa in Ireland, closely lost to England in another ODI series, beat Pakistan at home, and now have looked the only team capable of challenging the Aussies in the CB series. Sri Lanka have been rather too much dependent on Jayasurya, Dilshan, Sangakarra and Jayawardene, the newer members of the team are just not putting their hand up. When a team slips from 72 for 1 after 15 overs to 93 for 7 on a perfect batting pitch as in today's match at Hobart, something is seriously wrong. While the bowling and fielding has been good, the batting has been plain awful and that has let the team down.
India on the other hand seem to be doing rather well. Dhoni has done a decent job as a captain. I think the best thing i like about this team is that they do tend to fight it out till the end. In the last match against Australia, chasing a target of 300 plus, they slipped to 51 for 4, and it seemed a total rout. But Gambhir, Uthappa, Pathan all fought back valiantly, and made sure that the Aussies would not have an easy victory. Also Sachin and Yuvi striking form at right time, is a good augury for India. Another thing that i found impressive with the current Indian team has been the running between the wickets. Dhoni, Gambhir, Rohit, Uthappa have all proved to be excellent runners. Dhoni has been leading from the front and generally positive in his approach. Bowling has been spot on, with Ishant, Praveen Kumar and Pathan, all doing really well. Ishant has been the find, and i hope that he does not get distracted by all the adulation.
The Aussies also seem to be peaking at right moment. Ponting, Hayden, Symonds have all struck form at right time. Both the Michaels- Hussey and Clarke, have been anchoring the middle order well. In fact throught out the tournament, it has been the middle and late order that has been doing most of the batting for both teams. Hussey for Australia and Dhoni for India, have been doing the finishing job regularly. Gautam Gambhir has also been one of the discoveries. He had this big time tendency to throw away his wicket earlier, but now he seems to have buckled down, and is pacing his innings very well. Lee, Johnson and Bracken have been doing the bowling well enough for Australia, the weak link is however Brad Hogg, who is just nowhere close to Warne. All in all a very interesting finals awaits us ahead.
As of now in the sub continental teams India is far ahead of both Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Sri Lanka has hardly done anything of note after the World Cup, and Pakistan right now appears no better than a B Grade club team, reduced to doing victory laps for a victory over Zimbabwe!!!. India has been shaping up rather well both in Tests and ODI after the World Cup debacle, but one has to see in the performance in South Africa and New Zealand, two venues where India has traditionally struggled, to form a complete opinion. All in all interesting times ahead.
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