T20 cricket is all about big shots, quick runs, taking risks and scoring the runs very very fast. Well that's true if you have a tailor made wicket for T20. In T20s, the pitches normally are made in such a way that they don't offer any lateral movement to the quicks and give very little turn to the spinners.
However on certain occasions the pitch curators have different ideas. In the match played between Sri Lanka and India in Pune today, we did not get the pitch that's ideal for T20 cricket.The pitch in Pune had lot of grass on it which gave lot of lateral movement to the the quicks.
Sri Lanka won the toss and put India in to bat. The Indian batsmen were in great form and they probably were expecting to maul the inexperienced Sri Lankan bowling today. However the young Srilankan bowlers bowled beautifully.
The débutante fast medium bowler Kasun Rajitha got the wicket of in form Rohit Sharma of the second ball of the match. Rohit Sharma mistimed a drive that was caught by Chameera at mid off.
In the same over Rahane mistimed a shot that was caught by Chandimal. This two early blows set Indians back. However Dhawan and Raina played well till the 5th over, it was difficult to score on the wicket since it offered a lot of bounce and lateral movement to the quicks.
Raina's catch was dropped in the 3rd over. When Dhawan tried to hit a ball over the midwicket the ball took the top edge of the bat and ended up in the hands of the fielder at third man.
Yuvraj came to bat and hit the second ball he faced for a six. Raina was batting in his normal aggressive style regardless of the fact that Indians had lost three wickets. Raina was clean bowled by ball that came back after pitching.
Now captain Dhoni and Yuvraj were expected to steady the ship in that lively pitch, however Dhoni tried to pull the very second ball he faced and ended up giving a catch to the wicket-keeper. Dhoni could have easily left the ball, he did not need to play that shot so early.
Yuvraj was out in exactly the same way the tried to pull a ball, did not make a good connection and ended up giving an easy catch to the fielder. Wickets of Pandya and Jadeja fell quickly. However Ashwin and Nehra did form a good partnership for the ninth wicket.
Nehra scored only 6 runs of 19 balls and gave good support to Ashwin. It is this partnership that enabled India to cross the 100 run mark in 18.3 overs. The very next ball after pushing the team total to 100, Nehra hit the ball in the air which was caught by Chameera.
In the next ball Bhumrah was run out when he slipped when trying to return back to the crease. India ended up with a paltry total of 101 runs, 40 runs short of a good total. Had the middle order played according to the pitch conditions, India could have easily scored 30 or 40 runs more, giving a challenging target to the Lankans.
Even with this paltry total India did compete well. The Lankans did not find scoring very easy. Nehra did pick up a wicket in his first and third over. Bhumrah also bowled well on the other side. However Sri Lanka were able to maintain the required run rate, which was just 5.1 runs an over.
Since the Lankans knew the required total, they took far lesser risks as compared to the their Indian counterparts. Most of Indians actually gave their wicket away in trying to score freely and quickly. Their ploy would have worked had this pitch been like the ones they had in Australia in the T20 and one day series.
Indians did manage to pick up 5 wickets but since the burden of scoring runs was not very high, with some sensible batting Lankans were able to get the total. The bowlers of both the teams bowled well but Sri Lanka batted better than India and that's where the match was won by Sri Lanka going 1-0 up in the series.
In next two matches we will probably see better pitch than this one. In all likely hood the pitches for the next matches would be flatter and more runs will be scored.
Let's hope that Indian batsmen perform better in the next matches. It is wonderful to see an excellent performance by the Sri Lankan team who have very little in terms of experience.
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