India vs Sri Lanka

After a record 3rd double hundred by Rohit Sharma in the 2nd ODI , Shikhar Dhawan produced a flawless hundred to decimate the Sri Lankan bowling attack after Kuldeep and Chahal had bamboozled Sri Lankan last 6 batters. Upul Tharanga was the only one who contributed heavily with a blistering 95 which included 20 runs of Hardik Pandya's 2nd over. Once Tharanga was stumped by the great man behind the stumps of Kuldeep, no one could stay in and all of them were sent packing as fast as they came in.     6th Bilateral ODI series win of the year is no less achievement. India would have liked it to be 3-0 but they won't complain with 2-1 because of the kind of pitch they played on in Dharamsala. Looking at the bigger picture which is the South Africa series, Shreyas Iyer is expected to play all the three T20s and to be on the flight to South Africa. If India can sign off with a win in T20 series too, it will be another memorable year for team India.

It will be the first series win for Sri Lanka in India if they manage to win the second ODI in Mohali. No doubt that Sri Lankans will be riding high on confidence coming on the back of a dominant victory at Dharamsala. Indians have a plenty of questions to answer especially at the top of the order. Captain Rohit Sharma has to fire at the top in the absence of Virat Kohli to give stability and let the middle order play around him. Dinesh Karthik and Manish Pandey will get one more chance to cement their places in the Indian batting line up. If India get to bat first again, then they will be relying heavily Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan to score heavily. Bowling line up looks quite settled at the moment with the two wrist spinners doing a fine job. The challange for Sri Lanka though will be not to get over the moon with that last victory as this Indian team is still a very difficult team to beat in home conditions. If it is a usual hard and flat Mohali pitch, plenty of runs are to be e...

The two captaincy debuts couldn't have been more distinct than this. Whatever Thisara Perera tried came off and India just didn't have enough answers to it. After winning the toss at the of the most picturesque venues in the world and putting India in, Suranga Lakmal produced another brilliant spell of fast bowling on a spicy pitch to end up with figures of 10-4-13-4. India were 29/7 and that is when the legend of MS Dhoni came to fore as the great man scored 65 to take India to 112. Sri Lanka successfully challanged on field calls as many as four times. No one could really cope with the pace and seam movement off the pitch. It was supposed to be a cake walk for Sri Lanka and indeed it was . That was a brutal reality check at a perfect time. Last two days of cricket have showed a contrasting fortunes for both the sides. Sri Lanka completely dominated the last day of the test series and the first ODI and it will take a bit of character to come back and win 2-1. If India lose th...

After an interesting test series, teams make their way north of India to one of the most beautiful grounds around the world. Dharamsala plays host to the 1st ODI between India and Sri Lanka in what could be a very interesting ODI series as well. India start as favourites without a shadow of a doubt but Sri Lanka posses much greater threat than they did in the longer format. Weaker teams start becoming dangerous as length of the game starts to shorten because you just have to play good cricket for 100 overs and not over the period of five days. Virat less India will be banking on Rohit Sharma to score heavily in the absence of the number 1 batsman in the world. Bowling line up looks quite in good nick with the likes of Chahal, Kuldeep and Bumrah all in good form. While it will be a great opportunity for India to search a perfect no. 4, they can not take Sri Lanka for granted. Sri Lanka are coming in this series on the back of a 12 match losing streak with as many as three whitewashes in...

'Smog' was the 'showstopper' for a little while in what turned out to be a pretty good match dominated by India for the best part of four days. India lost a couple of wickets early after winning the toss and electing to bat first. Virat Kohli walked in at no. 4 and another meal of a delicious breakfast was presented on a platter in front of him for the next 4 sessions. In what might be his most effortless double ton, Virat smashed Sri Lankan bowlers to every part of Feroz Shah Kotla. Murali Vijay also helped himself to another century against a helpless bowling attack. After a little drama regarding the whether conditions, Kohli decided to declare the innings with score well beyond 500. Shami got the very first ball to climb off the length to get an outside edge of Dimuth Karunaratne's bat which carried easily to Wriddhiman Saha. A huge partnership was to be followed between skipper Dinesh Chandimal and former skipper Angelo Matthews after the fall of a couple of wi...

For a player who made his name as a T20 specialist at the start his career to pick up as many as 300 test match wickets is as astonishing as it can get . Ashwin made a very impressive test debut in 2011 against the West Indies but couldn't quite do the job in foreign conditions over the next 12 months. His breakout series was against Australia in 2013 when he took 28 wickets and spun India to a whitewash against the mighty Aussies. He played a few away test matches without much success. It was only after 2015 World Cup that Ashwin rediscovered the flight and guile to decieve the batsman in the air. From 2015 to 2017 Ashwin took a hell of a lot of wickets on Indian pitches as well as a couple of five-fors in the West Indies. Ashwin has formed a formidable partnership with Ravindra Jadeja in home conditions. It is because of Jadeja that Ashwin can try all the variations in actual match situations. Earlier Ashwin used to be all over the place with plenty of carrom balls but now he ha...