The lost world

Indian cricketers could be seen doing some heavy last-minute shopping at the Colombo airport duty-free...

Indian cricketers could be seen doing some heavy last-minute shopping at the Colombo airport duty-free on Saturday, on their way back to India after what had been a rather taxing tour of Sri Lanka.

Blame it on the Beijing Olympics, which coincided with the series, but it didn8217;t exactly get top-billing over the last three weeks. One other reason could be that the cricket served up lacked the famous Lankan flavour. A closer inspection of the 3-2 scoreline does indicate that the side playing mediocre cricket beat the one that was downright poor, and under the circumstances, it8217;s hardly surprising that India8217;s first-ever ODI series win in the island nation failed to impress many.

Every single match in the five-ODI series was decided after one of the two sides collapsed8212; and India only slipped twice. Also, luck played a big role in the results as the side that won the toss invariably won the match.

Low-scoring contests

To count a few positives, this one-day series was distinctly different from what the norm has been of late, at least in the subcontinent: high-scoring games. Not once did the total come in the vicinity of 300 8212; in fact, the highest score was 247 by India in the fourth one-dayer 8212; and to see small totals defended successfully in this era of slam-bang cricket was heartening. The series belonged entirely to the bowlers even though Mahendra Singh Dhoni walked away with the Man of the Tournament award for his crucial knocks.

The batsmen struggled to find their feet against both spin and pace. Yuvraj Singh started with a bang, scoring a whirlwind 172 in the warm-up game, but could muster up just 72 in the five matches. Despite that, he remained in contention for the bike that went to the man who hit the maximum boundaries.

Only six batsmen from either side could aggregate more than hundred, while star players such as Kumar Sangakkara 37 and Gautam Gambhir 36 in four games were among the biggest flops.

Virat makes a mark

But while many big guns fired blanks, India8217;s find in this series with the bat was Virat Kohli. The 19-year old from Delhi rose to the challenge of facing the new ball and looked confident8212;in fact, his dismissals could actually be attributed to overconfidence. Dhoni, in his mellowed-down avatar was effective, but that meant there was no one to pinch-hit in the lower-order.

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Munaf Patel redeemed himself and claimed seven wickets with his disciplined bowling and, along with Zaheer Khan, who was India8217;s most successful bowler with nine wickets in the series, proved seam bowling has its scope in all parts of the globe.

Tackling Mendis

Mendis was expected to be a big factor, but Dhoni 038; Co were well prepared this time, especially after the first two one-dayers. The Lankan who made an impact was Thilan Thushara. The lanky all-rounder bowled with gusto and batted with great application to emerge the second highest run-getter and wicket-taker for Sri Lanka. In contrast, Irfan Pathan cut a sorry figure as he carried his poor form to Lanka as well.

So while India8217;s success may suggest young legs can make a difference, the effort, unlike the one in Australia, was anything but world-class. The fact that previous Indian teams touring the island nation had not performed at all, a slight improvement shouldn8217;t be blown out of proportion. For there are still areas of concern needing immediate attention.