Series Impressions – India vs. Sri Lanka 2008

August 12, 2008

Series TItle: The Mendis Remains Encrypted Series

Prediction: 1-0 India. Run-fest.

2-1 Sri Lanka, not a run-fest except in the first Test. A listless Indian performance.

Expectations:

• Mendis plays carroms with the Big 4 and loses. He does not. Dravid & Laxman in particular were really clueless. Tendulkar didn’t appear to have any issues with Murali or Mendis, but never sustained an innings.
• SRT goes past Lara for the Test Run Record. My theory here is that Tendulkar would have preferred to break the record @ home against Australia, so the incentive was diminished. Now more than ever, it takes a larger & larger stage for the Big 4 to perform.
• SRT dominates MM like Lara / Pietersen before him. That’s a point he has to prove. Clearly he is comfortable with his legacy and sees no point to prove. I disagree. I continue to hold Lara in a brighter light.
• Kumble will struggle in Lanka – the rust comes off slower now and the “snap” off the wicket is gone. Atleast this was confirmed. He really was a sad sight.
• Vaas will suck after 3 overs. Fernando, Malinga loss will hurt them – this attack has no pace… he sucked most of the series, not impressed.
• Expect Ganguly to do well on a slow & grimy pitch. His performance in this series will likely result in him being dropped and Yuvraj getting an extended run. I think this is the end of the line unfortunately.

Questions:

• Does Laxman still have it in him to play entrenched innings on slow pitches in adverse conditions? Yes & no. He seemed to have more fight than the other 3, but nothing like what it was <2004.
• Will SRT remain injury free for a historic test season ahead? He’s hurt the elbow again. And predictably dropped out of the ODI series. Smart choice, but seriously, SRT is getting increasingly fragile & self-doubting. He was in a good place there for a while, I hope this injury doesn’t off-set him too much.
• Will Murali continue his downward spiral or find a new elixir? Murali was still very useful (Murali & Mendis sent down 324 overs in the series). But this is nowhere near his peak. Those days are gone.
• Will Dravid regain any sense of fluency with his batting again? He was going well for that 68 in the final series… it seems that the minute his strike-rate drops below 40, the probability of him failing jumps dramatically. He was moving along smoothly at an SR of 45 but he just clammed up. Really annoying.
• Will Ishant learn how to bowl on slow n’ low wickets? He was learning. And then he got injured. Generally speaking, his potential is obvious but his consistency especially on the line is useless.
• Will Sangakkara ever have a bad home series? It was looking like a bad series until that match-winning century that put the game out of reach for India. He stepped up when it mattered, as did Jayawardene. Both the Jayawardenes.

India need to regroup and figure out what the way forward is to put on the best show against Australia. I am not even sure if the BCCI cares about what the Test series results are. The wicket-keeping department & Dhoni’s return will help. This doesn’t preclude us from not finding a decent backup.

Parthiv and Karthik were sub-par. Karthik should never play a Test again. Ganguly needs to let it go and retire. Laxman & Dravid are needed. SRT needs to figure out what his goals are, I think he needs to retire from ODI cricket. T20 & Tests are what he should focus on.

On the bowling front – Kumble needs to figure out if he still has the will to bowl… quite frankly the captaincy hasn’t been innovative or adventurous. Yes, he got no support from the batting line-up, but the field placements, bowling changes could have been more prescient. Why does Tendulkar never bowl anymore? Why didn’t Sehwag bowl more? Why didn’t the tail contribute more runs? And was Mendis really that hard to pick when Sehwag & Gambhir seemed to be productive against them? Gambhir shut the door on Jaffer with this performance. And Sehwag’s 201 out of 329 is likely to make a 100 best Test Innings Ever list. It was awesome match-winning batting.

I think Kumble said it right – “We may not have bowled well, but we bowled with heart.” In that was the story in a nutshell. The big 4 just didn’t bring their full hearts into this series. They just didn’t step up. Perhaps the occasion was too modest. Clearly for our two openers, both under the age of 30, hunger wasn’t a problem. Perhaps there is a lesson there.

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