India – Sri Lanka cricket series

India - Sri Lanka cricket series

Yet another Cricket home series for India

Barely a week after the 8-over aside​​ decider​​ with New Zealand at Thiruvananthapuram, there is yet another bilateral series lined up for India. Sri Lanka, the mighty Lankans (a little less mighty now), are​​ visiting India. They will play India across all formats during the next one and a half month. The series comprises of three mini-series of three matches each i.e. three tests, ODIs and Twenty20s respectively.​​ 

India has had a​​ terrific run​​ since last one year and especially at home. Since beating or rather thrashing Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka (9-0 margin in Test, ODIs and T20s), India has beaten Australia 4-1 in ODIs and New Zealand 3-2 in ODIs and T20s both.​​ 

The Test

Test for India will be shifting mindset from the shorter and even shorter format to the longest format of the game, the Test matches. Despite the difference in rankings of the two teams and the fact that Sri Lanka were shamefully walloped only a few months back on their own turf, India will have to try to put its best foot forward at most of the times and expel every notion of complacency.​​ 

Fresh faces

India’s increased bench strength has allowed it to have a somewhat different​​ team​​ for the test matches. For one, Dhoni is not part of test team since​​ Dec 2014​​ and​​ Wriddhiman Saha​​ has replaced him admirably behind the stumps. Then two of the openers, Lokesh Rahul and Murli Vijay, middle order batsman Pujara and the bowlers Shami, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma have not played international cricket for a while. Ashwin and Jadeja, who were an indispensable part of ODIs till some time back are also making a comeback of sorts. They had been apparently rested and the trio of Chahal, Kuldeep and Axar had been handling the spin department in the last two ODI series. The inclusion of these fresh faces will help India acclimatise better to the five-day format. Moreover, with a long list of players knocking on the door, these new faces will very likely be on their toes and desperate to perform well which augurs well for the Indian team.

The African safari

With all the focus on the coming matches and the first match starting 16th November, the host will also have at the back of their mind, the gruelling South African tour in January next year. Since India’s first tour to South Africa in​​ 1992, it has never won a test series or for that matter an ODI series there.​​ 

India has always been a good batting side; however, the strength of this team is that the bowlers can hold their own in any given condition and against any opposition. This is also evident from the number of recent matches India has won solely due to some excellent bowling. Previously, in foreign and seaming conditions, the host teams used to serve seamer friendly pitches on which both Indian batsmen as well as the bowlers used to struggle. Hence, India won very few matches outside. Now, with a strong pace bowling attack firstly, opposing host teams will be wary of dishing out bowler friendly pitches and secondly, even if they did, India will be in a good position to give it back to them. The Australia and South Africa​​ Cape Town test in 2011​​ illustrates this point. Australia had skittled the proteas for 96 in the first innings, but the host had counter attacked through their bowlers and​​ dismissed the Kangaroos for a paltry 47 in the second innings and then won the match chasing 231.​​ 

Perfect setting

This series seems to have been meticulously planned. Sri Lanka coming to India just before the African Safari next year and India gearing up​​ to dish out seaming, bouncing pitches for the first time in history probably. Even the venue for the first test, the Eden Gardens in Kolkatta, has been aptly chosen. The​​ Eden pitch​​ was re-laid two seasons ago and​​ preparations are afoot to produce a fast and bouncy pitch for the series opener. India can afford to experiment in this regard against this considerably weaker Sri Lankan team. ​​ 

Source:​​ ESPN Cric Info, Sri Lanka’s record since​​ 2015

Way ahead

Some hard contest on good, lively surfaces would immensely help prepare an Indian team which could truly be world beaters. The Australian team under​​ Steve Waugh​​ and​​ Ricky Ponting​​ was as dominating at home as in any part of the world. This new and young Indian team is an excellent mix of classy batsmen and quality seamers & spinners. It also has a good allrounder coming up in ranks. Hardik Pandaya, has been strategically rested for the Sri Lankan series. He has shown a lot of potential with both bat and ball and with some proper handling, can go onto become a world class allrounder.

After the 9-0 clean sweep, hopes would be​​ high for similar results again. It will be interesting to watch how Sri Lanka goes about challenging the buoyant host team.

To Eden then.