An all Indian day!
Finally after a long time we have experienced a solid opening partnership by Gauti-Viru. In ODIs one might blame Sachin for blocking the next Ganguly-Sachin like opening partners. But hey, even he is doing his job well.
Never mind, back to the present game. After already witnessing two great tons, I do hope as an Indian supporter to see Dravid and Tendulkar cementing their positions on-field and score a ton tomorrow. But who knows, the pitch might just get better for the bowlers later. In fact if you see, even in the last game played at Kanpur where both Gambhir and Sehwag featured in an opening partnership was against South Africa in 2004 where they took the toll to 218 runs.
That game resulted in a draw. Let's hope it doesn't happen this time around. I won't say the pitch will continue to be a batting paradise for whole 5 days like the one in Ahmedabad. I just think the Sri Lankans weren't up to the mark, especially Mendis. It could have been much better for them...really better had Mahela not dropped Sehwag when he wasn't even off the mark. Sehwag really did punish all the bowlers after that cautious little period early during the morning session.
India look good enough to take the team total to at least 600 runs if they don't collapse. Tomorrow's first hour could be an important one especially for Dravid if he wants to capitalize his innings and score about 150 runs. The Indians have a strong line-up to come. But on a day even the line-up loaded with the likes of Laxman, Yuvraj and Dhoni can falter. And as I said before, if the pitch starts cracking up...expect Murali and Mendis to take revenge. In fact only these two, all the bowlers could come very handy.
Some Shocking Decisions
I turned my Television on at around 8:30 AM waiting for toss only to here the changes made in the lineups of both the teams.
First up was India - Sreesanth comes in for Ishant, Ojha for Mishra. The former one in my opinion was totally atrocious. How can Dhoni and Co. loose confidence in him. Did Dhoni forgot how he used to show confidence in players like Yuvraj(during his early reign as captain) who were once going through bad form? Ishant has to be considered a bit unlucky. If you see, he did well in the first two games against Australia during the ODI series. Yet when he got a little expensive figures to show in the 3rd ODI, he was dropped for the rest of the series. And yet again, Dhoni expected him to bring in some wickets for the team on a dead flat batting track.
Mishra's exclusion was no less than atrocious too. Again, Dhoni seems to have lost confidence in a young talented spinner bringing in another young turner. I anyways won't say much about it...after all it is Ojha's birthday today!
Then came the Sri Lankan captain. At once I thought Sangakkara might have made a good decision to bring back Mendis for injured Damika Prasad. But later, when he was taken apart by all the Indian batsmen, Sanga might himself be ruing this decision. Well...he has at least shown some faith in Mendis.
By the tomorrow is my 15th birthday. And so as a birthday gift, I do hope to see the Indians end this match as well as the whole series on a winning note.
