Sri Lanka will be hoping to wrap up the series against out
of sorts India in the upcoming Sri Lanka vs India test
match to be played at Galle this coming Thursday 31st July 2008. Sri Lanka already
have a smashing 1-0 lead in the series and given the run of things so far, it
would take a long haul form the men in blue to overcome their Southern rivals.
Click for Live Score Card of Sri Lanka vs India
The first test match saw Sri Lanka end up winners by a massive
innings and 238 runs. Put into bat by the Indians, the Lankans recovered from
a poor start to register a winning first innings core of 573. Mahela Jayawardena
was the undisputed star of their batting performance as his core legacy coupled
with some exceptional stroke play helped his side to register a total that was
always going to be tough to overhaul. However, what did the trick was just not
their batting performance but a brilliant spell of bowling from the spin twin
pair of Muttaih Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis. Both of them
were instrumental in triggering a collapse in the Indian batting line up as
Sri Lanka edged them to their biggest win in test history. The dominance of
Mendis and Muralitharan can be gauged from the fact that nineteen of the twenty
wickets to fail were picked up by both of them re-endering the pace attack just
a mere additional foil. Muralitharan will be delighted to step up the task after
a relatively disappointing Asia Cup and with the ever improving Ajantha Mendis
as his able partner in spin bowling, expect the Sri Lankans to put up pressure
on the Indian batting line up this coming weekend in Galle.
India on the other hand will be distraught after losing their
second clash against Sri Lanka in quick succession. After the CB Series in Australia,
India have struggled to cop up with Sri Lanka and their recent defeat suggests
that a change in tactic is a must for the men in blue. One aspect on which they
will have to work upon is their fitness and fielding which looked rag rugged
and poor last time around. One of the biggest contributing factor for this is
that the test side contains five players over the age of 35, something that
skipper Anil Kumble who himself is pushing 38 will have to look to in the days
ahead. While the bowling needs to pick themselves up from the mauling last time
around, it is the batting that will have some soul searching to do after the
debacle in Colombo. The famed Indian batting line up had absolutely no
answer to the spin pair of Muralitharan and Mendis and a change in approach
is a must if they are to tie the three match India Sri Lanka test series this
coming Thursday 31st July in Galle.
Don't miss a single moment of this exciting test match l between India vs Sri
Lanka live online with us here, your one stop destination for all cricket news,
views and updates. Keep in tune with the Indian cricket scores with our RSS
and Flash based scorecards which give you live Indian cricket updates in a jiffy.
Listen to the opinions of cricketing gurus on the current state of Indian cricket
with our unofficial live cricket commentary portal which streams in Indian cricket
audio updates in a fraction of bandwidth in comparison to live online cricket
streaming services. So sit back and watch top class live Indian cricket here,
the premium cricket portal.
|
