India vs Sri Lanka 2012 1st ODI cricket match: Preview

India vs Sri Lanka 2012 1st One Day International (ODI) cricket match is set to begin within hours. Here is a short preview

By S Ubaid (NVONews.Com)

India vs Sri Lanka One Day International series is set to begin today. After beating Pakistan into submission earlier this month, Sri Lankans are in great spirit and ready to face the Indian team that has seen its stock slide in recent months. But right now Indian team seems to have been refreshed by the long sabbatical they took from playing non-stop cricket.

The Sri Lankan team is on top of the world after beating Pakistan in both test and one day format quite easily. Throughout the series, the more than month long series, Sri Lankan bowlers didn’t allow Pakistani batsmen to play long innings and everyone from Hafeez to Misbahul Haq and others, flopped during the series.

Sri Lanka will try to build on its achievement in the previous series against Pakistan and give India the same treatment as it gave to Pak team.

Indian team meanwhile is suffering from myriad problems of its own. The whole team’s physical fitness is in doubt. This is more true about the bowling department. Top Indian pacer Zaheer Khan has been in and out of the team for his lack of physical fitness and nobody is sure if he will be able to remain in the playing eleven in even half of the series.

Reports earlier suggested that Initially Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) was interested in playing a full-fledged series against India, including a short Test series. But due to hectic scheduling, the Indian cricket board (BCCI) couldn’t accommodate Test series, but has given go ahead to the One-dayers and T20s. India’s schedule is very tight in the next few months and soon after finishing the Lanka assignment (in July-August), India are schedule to play two-match Test series against New Zealand at home in August before World T20 begins in September.

Indian bowling side was looking pretty good before Vinay Kumar was announced unfit due to injuries. Medium pacer Irfan Pathan has been included in his places instead. Irfan is a worthy all-rounder, but his performance with the ball has created doubts about his ability to bowl effectively and consistently. Let’s hope that the blue-eyed boy of Indian cricket is able to come alive to expectations and is able to perform well with the ball and bat too.

Indian batting seems to be in safe hands as Dhoni, Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Kohli are raring to go and exploit the favourable conditions in Sri Lanka in their favour.

Team Sri Lanka
DPMD Jayawardene*, AD Mathews, LD Chandimal, TM Dilshan, HMRKB Herath, CK Kapugedera, KMDN Kulasekara, SL Malinga, BMAJ Mendis, NLTC Perera, KC Sangakkara†, SMSM Senanayake, WU Tharanga, HDRL Thirimanne, I Udana

Team India
MS Dhoni*†, V Kohli, R Ashwin, AB Dinda, G Gambhir, Z Khan, PP Ojha, IK Pathan, AM Rahane, SK Raina, V Sehwag, R Sharma, RG Sharma, MK Tiwary, UT Yadav

Shortlink:

Posted by admin on July 21, 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry