Preview:
Rain and low scoring affairs is what the farewell edition of this tri-series will be remembered for. That said, the bowling has been outstanding. The batsmen have been made hard to work for their runs; not often do you see Dhoni getting to fifty without a single hit to the fence or Gilchrist playing a very subdued innings. Clarke and Sangakkara have perhaps been the best batsmen this series, assessing the conditions early and planning out their innings well.
Fortunately, no rain has been forecast for Sunday at Sydney. Zilch. Now that we're in the business end of the tournament lets look at where these teams stand. Australia are in the finals, even if they get thrashed in their next two games. What about India? India need to win at least one of their two games to ensure a spot in the finals. If India lose tomorrow and on Tuesday again then they must rely on Australia to beat Sri Lanka for them to be in the finals.
For Australia these next two games will be valuable practice. It's Johnson who will be rested this time, so that he can be fresh ahead of the finals. Lee comes back into the squad. Their batsmen will be looking at these games to get themselves in form. Ponting's scores look like an international dialing code and whats worse is that he doesn't appear to be confident while at the crease. Symonds has done worse.
Ponting also revealed he had rejected an offer of a break from the Australian selectors, and said he was confident of turning his form around, starting with Sunday's tri-series clash against India in Sydney. "I really do only think it's getting half-an-hour to an hour in the middle and every batsman says that," he said here. "When you are in a rut you keep finding ways to get out. "Hopefully it's on Sunday that I get that hour in the middle and a few balls from the middle and things will start to turn around."
Adam Gilchrist had claimed the skipper was feeling the burden of leadership during a particularly turbulent season, with the contentious Harbhajan Singh hearing, the uncertainty over the scheduled tour of Pakistan and the distraction of the Indian Premier League. But the Aussie skipper, who has also been troubled by back pain made no excuses. Ponting said he was doing extra work in the nets and was not prepared to accept the offer of resting from a tri-series match, even though Australia has already booked its place in the finals. "I want to work my way through it and come through the other side," he said. "I'm not quite through it yet, but I'll keep trying and I'll keep working hard. I have never thought of having a break ...physically, I have felt very good."
Symonds has managed to land a massive deal in the IPL despite aggregating only 42 runs this series. He has also been criticised over his threat to pull out of the upcoming tour of Pakistan and he's also been blamed for his part in the Harbhajan Singh race row. But Hopes, who also plays alongside Symonds with Queensland, defended the all-rounder. "I have known 'Roy' for a long time and it is not distracting him," said Hopes, using one of Symonds' nicknames. "He is just getting frustrated with his batting, not so much the way he is getting himself out but that he is not getting himself in. Everyone goes through those patches but I don't think it has anything to do with signing with the IPL or anything like that.
India have bowled extremely well this series, restricting Australia to low totals, but their batting has been a big letdown. Tendulkar hasn't scored a fifty yet, Gambhir hasn't scored anything of significance after his hundred in the washed out game. On the bright side, Friday saw the resurgence of Yuvraj Singh. He looked his confident self for once, flaying the ball to all parts of the ground. India will be hoping that knock isn't a one-off. The five bowlers strategy has worked well for India and it doesn't look like they will change the make up of the squad for this game either. The batsmen really need to fire though.
Teams
India (From): Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni(w/c), Robin Uthappa, Praveen Kumar, Harbhajan Singh, Munaf Patel, Irfan Pathan, Suresh Raina, Ishant Sharma, Dinesh Karthik, S Sreesanth, Manoj Kumar Tiwary, Piyush Chawla
Australia (From): Adam Gilchrist(w), Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting(c), Michael Clarke, Andrew Symonds, Mike Hussey, James Hopes, Brett Lee, Nathan Bracken, Stuart Clark, Mitchell Johnson, Adam Voges, Ashley Noffke, Brad Haddin, Brad Hogg, David Hussey
Source : Cricinfo
4 comments:
Australia 317 for 7
ponting hit a century 124 runs
india in trouble 68 for 4 in 14.4 overs
india lost by 18 runs. gambhir and robin helped us get close to the target. next match on tuesday. against srilanka. must wi fr india
It's a face-off that both India and Sri Lanka could have avoided, but they have only themselves to blame for turning their final encounter of the CB Series into a virtual semi-final for one and knockout for the other. Despite holding the edge on at least one occasion against Australia, both teams would envy Ricky Ponting's men letting their hair down at tomorrow's Allan Border medal presentation while they get into a dogfight at the Bellerive Oval.
Such has been the nature of this series so far that, apart from Australia, no team has consistently capitalised on the weaknesses of the opponents. In the three previous games between the two teams, India and Sri Lanka have one victory each while their first encounter of the series, in Brisbane, was abandoned due to rain. Sri Lanka stand on the precipice and to pull themselves back they need to defeat India and then repeat that result against Australia on Friday. India, meanwhile, will seal their berth in the final if they win on Tuesday.
"We wouldn't like to wait for the result on February 29," Mahendra Singh Dhoni said. "We would like to seal the match against Sri Lanka and not leave it to the last game between Australia and Sri Lanka. This game is very important for us." The Indian captain has already alerted his troops about the task, terming Sri Lanka "very tricky" opponents.
Sri Lanka have the advantage of having played at this venue twice this season. They lost a Test here in November and then Tasmania slapped a seven-wicket defeat on them in the practice game ahead of the tri-series. "The Test-match wicket was much harder compared to the practice match that was played on a different one, but we have a fair idea of the wicket. It depends on the conditions, which can be overcast here sometimes, so we'll wait and see," Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lanka's captain, said after a net session.
The conditions played a huge role in the last one-day match at the ground, when Tasmania won a closely fought encounter on Saturday to lift the Ford Ranger Cup by one wicket after rain interruptions converted Victoria's original target of 158 to 131 in 31 overs. The forecast for Tuesday is mostly sunny with temperatures in the range of 20°C. The wicket at the Bellerive Oval is likely to offer significant sideways movement, which could be a key factor for both captains when they sit down to choose their final XIs.
Dhoni already has a couple of issues to tackle, one of which is the failure of his opening pair, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag. One option could be to push Robin Uthappa, who scored a 46-ball 51 down the order on Sunday against Australia, ahead of Sehwag. Dhoni doesn't want to disturb an in-form Gautam Gambhir's fine run at No.3 but felt he had enough options to choose from.
The other matter is that of fatigue. Players like Dhoni and Ishant Sharma have been playing non-stop from the start of the Test series and India's inability to qualify for the finals means these two have had no time to rest. "It's tough on guys like Ishant and Gautam, but we have some time to recover and we need them," was Dhoni's response to whether a 36-hour break was enough for the team to bounce back after yesterday's game against Australia.
Without any indication of the combination he will opt for, Jayawardene's focus was on tomorrow and not too far down the road. "We have to win both the games. If we get our batting sorted out, we have a very good chance," he said. "We need to concentrate first on getting the victory on Tuesday."
Both teams have their share of top-order batting concerns and there's an outside chance, given the Hobart conditions, that they both go in with five bowlers. If Munaf Patel recovers from a bout of food poisoning suffered on Saturday he might just sneak into the Indian XI. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, have dropped Farveez Maharoof and Chanaka Welegedara. Tillakaratne Dilashan is likely to continue in the middle order, with one out of Upul Tharanga and Dilruwan Perera opening with Sanath Jayasuriya. Depending on the conditions, they will choose from Chamara Kapugedera and Nuwan Kulasekara for the last spot in the XI.
Teams
India: (likely) 1 Robin Uthappa, 2 Sachin Tendulkar, 3 Gautam Gambhir, 4 Rohit Sharma, 5 Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt & wk), 6 Yuvraj Singh, 7 Irfan Pathan, 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Sreesanth, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 Munaf Patel.
Sri Lanka: (from) Sanath Jayasuriya, Upul Tharanga, Dilruwan Perera, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Kumar Sangakkara (wk), Mahela Jayawardene (capt), Chamara Silva, Chamara Kapugedera, Chaminda Vaas, Muttiah Muralitharan, Ishara Amerasinghe, Nuwan Kulasekara, Lasith Malinga.
Gambhir, praveen, sachin and ishant show the lankan the way out. india win the match by 7 wickets. 180 to win in 50 and india reached there in 32 overs.
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