 India will face Sri Lanka in the second Test match of the three-game series at Colombo from Monday. Sri Lanka leads the series 1-0 after winning the first
game rather easily by ten wickets. Muthiah Muralitharan and Lasith Malinga
were the two heroes of the game for the Sri Lankans as they ran through the powerful
Indian line-up and won the game for them.
Click for Live Score Card of Sri Lanka Vs IndiaIndia has a lot of thinking to do. They struggled with the ball in the first
game but they were expected to that. What was highly unexpected was their batting
against Sri Lanka, when they collapsed twice in a span of two days and 180 overs
to lose the game. one clearly gets the feeling that there was enough rustiness
there and the batsmen just could not survive the that along with the Sri Lankan
bowlers.
The good news for India will be the fact that Muralitharan will no longer be
a part of the side. The not-so-good news is the probable return of Ajantha Mendis. Mendis had troubled the Indian batsmen in the warm-up game as well,
and the time is right to throw him in the mix and get the best out of him. The
Indians looked to have just started reading Murali on the last day of the game,
but now, they will need to resume the same from the second Test match onwards
against Mendis.
The batting line-up for India will not change, but given their bowling line-up's
weakness, one gets the sense that they may toy with the idea of getting in an
extra bowler. That will need to happen at the expense of a batsman and that
will make it more difficult for the Indians - after all, the only batsman who
can be dropped is Yuvraj Singh and he had scored a half century in the
game.
Sri Lanka will not look to make any changes except the obvious and forced ones.
For one, Murali will be out, and should be replaced by Mendis. The other change
that could come in could be to do with Thilan Samaraweera, who injured
himself in the game while fielding and his absence could allow Thilina Kandamby
to get a shot.
Sri Lanka will realise that if they manage to win this series 2-0, they will
go up to the number one position in the Test rankings and will be gunning for
the same. And given the Indian performance, they will be the favourites to do
so.
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