Same old story, India lose the plot

Chappell, too, said it would take more time for the Indians to start playing with confidence.

Next, fitness. The sight of Indian batsmen calling for water bottles every second over while chasing Sri Lanka’s 281, and of Rahul Dravid and Yuvraj — the two fittest members of the team — visibly tiring, belied all the pre-season training. And shattered a few myths about the fitness levels of our cricketers.

Colombo, after all, isn’t an alien climate; it’s no more humid than Kolkata, Mumbai or Chennai in summer. Perhaps the pre-season camp — where the focus was on fitness — should have been at one of the metros instead of Bangalore, where the temperature was in the late 20s.

Finally, commitment. The Sri Lankans fielded like a herd of Shylocks, bowled dead straight and batted with wisdom and cool heads. They concentrated fully on the task at hand and rarely seemed to get rattled.

Marvan Attapattu’s captaincy was far superior to Dravid’s. Especially in the way he handled his bowlers, keeping the dangerous Muralitharan and Vaas for the end and tightening the noose around the Indians.

The Indians were let down by abysmal fielding, for which Dhoni must take a large part of the blame. Their batting turned on two moments of indiscretion, from Yuvraj and Dravid, before collapsing in an undignified heap, six wickets going for 41 runs.

The bowlers — the full complement, mind you, no part-timers — were guilty of not going in for the kill after controlling the first 15 overs. They were shown up by Mahela Jayawardene who made good use of their unmeasured pace.

The lone bright spot in the attack was Ashish Nehra, the only one who troubled the Lankans. That he picked up all the wickets — the other three were run-outs — says a lot for the rest of the attack.

If the tri-series was an area to experiment with the available options, bowling was definitely one department where the Indians fired every shell in the cannon. Going by what it achieved, they might need more ammunition.

At the end of five matches, of which three were lost, the bottomline is that India, having played all their possible combinations, are still looking.

Chappell, who has had enough time to get a reasonable idea of what he has on hand, had this to say at the end: ‘‘There’s a lot more hard work to be put in. All of this, the good and the bad, will be taken into account. We will go back and work it out.’’ They have a fortnight before another potentially tricky tour to Zimbabwe. Their time starts now.