Plays of the day: India v Sri Lanka, third Test match, day one
The third Test match of the series between India and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758 started Tuesday at the P Sara Stadium in Colombo. Following are the highlights from the first day of action.
Sightscreen gets shifted:
Technically, this was not the play of the first day, because this happened before the start of play, but it was something that shows the meticulous nature of Sachin Tendulkar’s preparations before a Test match. As we all know, Tendulkar is a short man and while facing up to a tall, fast bowler, he needs to look up. It is on occasions like these that Tendulkar has difficulty with the lower sight-screens. Sight-screens are kept behind the umpires, outside the fence, to avoid the distraction from behind the bowlers’ arm.
Tendulkar had requested the ground staff to increase the height of the sight-screen and the same was duly agreed to. Unfortunately, the ground lost out on a lot of money as they had to pull down a sponsor’s hoarding in order to heed to Tendulkar’s demand.
Dhoni creates a toss-record:
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/MS-Dhoni-c2028 will not like to talk about this record to his grandkids. He lost his eighth successive toss in international cricket when he called wrong at the start of the game today. What was even more funny was that there were two coins taken out to toss, with the Indian captain given the option to choose which one he wanted to use. Dhoni chose the gold coin and then called tails. It came down as heads.
Tony Greig, the commentator who interviewed Dhoni after the toss, had a query, “What do you about the tosses?” It has clearly come to a point of absurdity for Dhoni when commentators are having to ask him whether losing as badly as he does requires some kind of special preparation. The odds of losing eight tosses in a row are one in 256.
Tendulkar breaks the record:
This one was on expected lines, from the start of the series. Tendulkar played in his 169th Test match and that meant that he had edged past Steve Waugh as a player to feature in the most number of Test matches. Waugh had had 168 to his name. Tendulkar has missed only 14 games in his 20 year-long career, all due to injuries.
However, the record for the least number of Test matches missed despite playing at least 100 belongs to former Australian captain, Allan Border, who featured in 156 and missed only one! Border also played in 153 successive Tests before missing his first one, which is a record.
Purple patch with a golden streak:
Kumar Sangakkara has been in the form of his life. In the last Test match against India in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/VVS-Laxman-c2772, who was in the slips, and floored the chance.
Sangakkara was only on 23 at that time, and he went on to make the Indians pay for the mistake with a 75 to his name. He looked good and untroubled after that, and should have got to his fourth successive century. A tired shot off Pragyan Ojha saw him being caught at the boundary by his nemesis, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Virender-Sehwag-c95429.
The golden streak came in the form of Sangakkara taking over from Sehwag as the number one batsman in the world in Test match cricket, according to the new rankings released by the ICC.
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