Ajantha Mendis' spectacular spell of 'mystery' spin bowling rendered the in-form Indian batting lineup chasing 274 clueless and led Sri Lanka to a comfortable run win in the Asia Cup finals on Sunday. He ended the day with astonishing figures of 8-1-13-6!
Introduced into the attack in the tenth over with India cruising at 76/1 on the back of a blistering 60 off 34 balls by Sehwag, the Indian middle order facing him for the first time, struggled to read his flicked deliveries and were deceived out in no time. Only Dhoni who played him as late as possible reading the deliveries off the pitch was able to handle him a little better but with Mendis reducing the Indians to 98/5, it was just a matter of time before Sri Lanka wrapped up the win.
Earlier in the day, Dhoni took the field with an extra batsman, called right and put Sri Lanka to bat. Despite Jayasuriya's awesomely aggressive 125 - 26 of which were scored in the one RP Singh over (three sixes and two fours), with Ishant picking up early wickets, Sehwag and Ojha bowling tightly in the middle and RP Singh cleaning up the tail, India had restricted Sri Lanka to a sub par 273. In the end though, it turned out to be 100 runs too many!
Mendis or not, it should be noted that Dhoni made two tactical mistakes even before the match began - one, he chose to abandon the five bowler tactic that was so effective in the tournament & opted instead to strengthen the batting with a seventh batsman (Uthappa) and two, having won the toss, put the Sri Lankans to bat. Both these decisions were particularly bewildering considering that he justified these decisions as playing to his team's strength - batting. Since batting is our strength, my logic dictates that we should back our batsmen and bolster our bowling with an additional specialist. Also, instead of putting our weak bowling to test by bowling first, we should bat first, trust our strong batting to put up a big score and ease the pressure on the already weak bowling.
Looking ahead, the Test series coming up in a couple of weeks promises some thrilling cricket with the prospect of India's batting Trinity facing this exciting new spin sensation!
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