Plays of the Day: India v Sri Lanka, 2nd Test match, Day One
It was a day to forget for the Indians as the bowling was ground to dust by the Sri Lankan batsmen. The play was unsurprisingly one-sided and in parts, it also looked like it was only going through the motions. Here are the plays of the first day of the second Test match at the SSC in Colombo.
Dhoni's bad coin luck
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mahendra-Singh-Dhoni-c73820 should be rueing his luck. After all, his luck with the tosses seems to be going the same way as his luck with his fast bowlers. Most of the tosses in important games have been lost and in turn, that has affected the way the side has performed.
In this series, more than any other ones, tosses were going to be crucial, and for multiple reasons. One, the tracks in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758 usually become more difficult to bat on after the third day, and hence batting fourth in the games is usually fraught with danger. Secondly, the Indian bowling, which is so inexperienced that even a club side should be able to overcome them, is a big concern. To have any chance of success, the Indian bowling needs to have a buffer of some runs behind their back and hence, need their captain to win the toss and bat first.
As it turned out, Dhoni lost the toss, and was put in the field by his opposition. The hosts scored 300 runs, lost only two wickets and will now be sniffing at a near-600 total.
Dhoni may have just got married before the start of the Test, but ‘Lady Luck’ has clearly deserted him for now.
Time for some change
There were six changes in the game from the one that took place only a week back. That means of the 22 players who played in the first Test match, only 16 played in this game. Two of the changes were in the Indian side, while there were four in the Sri Lankan line-up.
India had toyed with the idea of going in with a couple of bowling changes. Instead, they lost two of the better batsmen to injuries before the game and had to be replaced. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Murali-Vijay-c78035 came in. On the other hand, Yuvraj Singh suffered from a bout of fever and made way for Suresh Raina.
The Sri Lankan set-up was even more interesting. There were four changes to their side due to a variety of reasons. There was an injury, a retirement and a couple of out-of-form players who were replaced by the others.
Lasith Malinga was injured after his exploits from the previous match and was replaced by Dammika Prasad. Muthiah Muralitharan retired from international cricket and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ajantha-c42419 Mendis came in. And there were the out-of-form Rangana Herath and Chanaka Welegedera, who were both replaced by Suraj Randiv and Dilhara Fernando.
Not too often will one find a side go into a game with four changes after having won the previous one, but that's exactly what Sri Lanka did.
Number 265 for India:
When Raina walked out on the field to take his first ever cap from Rahul Dravid, he became the 265th cricketer to play Test match cricket for http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750. In the previous game that India had played, Abhimanyu Mithun had become the 264th, whereas in the Test match before that one, Wriddhiman Saha and Subramaniam Badrinath had also joined in the fray at 262nd and 263rd respectively.
Interestingly, the last time India had no debutants in one whole year of playing Test cricket was in 1995, just one year before http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Rahul-c83321 Dravid and Sourav Ganguly were to make their debuts for India.
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