God !!! I still believe India isn't that consistent.
Obviously the standard has increased and somewhat it good enough as of now. But I must say, India could have done better today. They can't take a dead rubber lightly. The fielding was sloppy, the bowlers were whacked all over the ground by the Lankans which seemed pretty similar to the whacking they(Sri Lanka) got in the previous two ODIs. The batting wasn't up to the mark either. Should I blame everything to the toss ? Maybe I should. After all, the team who has won the toss has always won throughout the series. And as achettup replied to my comment in his post, it might have been very much true if Mahela had won all the 4 tosses in the previous games.
Though the best reason for this loss in my opinion is Dhoni's over-experimenting with the line-up. I would have wanted Zaheer and Sachin back in the playing XI if I also wanted Jadeja and Balaji as it would added some experience to the team. Jadeja did fairly well on his debut. He made a patient knock(although a quick fury of runs were needed) of 60 runs in 77 balls. Though he wasn't as impressive as a bowler as one might expect him to be. Balaji couldn't do much, since the Srilankans for on fire. So goes for the other bowlers as well.
Well anyway, now the series is over and India has done extremely well. While on the other hand Australia's downfall continues though it was a bit of relieve for them as they won the 3rd ODI against NZ. While the race for No.1 spot is still open. Before writing this post I also learnt that the team on the No.1 spot as on April 1 2009, will be awarded US $175,000 while the team in second spot will get US $75,000 by the ICC.
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