Cricket Highlights: Watch Sri Lanka vs India 2nd ODI highlights

Cricket Highlights: Watch Sri Lanka vs India 2nd ODI highlights
Cricket Highlights: Watch Sri Lanka vs India 2nd ODI highlights from the Premadasa, Colombo played on January 31, 2009.

Scoreline: India 256/9. Yuvraj Singh 66. Virender Sehwag 42 (26). Sri Lankan chase falls short (very close shave though) - 241. Kandamby 93 no, Jayawardene 52.

Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh turned up big time for India after Sachin Tendulkar was given a second poor decision in a row. The flaws with decisions continued with Yuvraj given LBW after a huge edge onto pads. The Indian innings fell away after that. Dhoni has played important steadying knocks in recent times, but I’d rather see India lose and Dhoni play like he did in the 1st year of his career than see him potter around for 20 odd and then mess up the batting powerplay. All the aggressive intent in the powerplay seemed to be from Yusuf Pathan and he was eventually run out because of unnecessary pressure created by MS on himself. The eventual target was only reached because Zaheer Khan and Praveen Kumar hung around.

It’s quite strange why Praveen Kumar isn’t a permanent member of the ODI squad. I can’t remember a single poor game that he’s had, and there’s something about him that tells you major at-the-death exploits with the bat are around the corner. Today he was painfully economical while bowling and strangled the initial overs of the Lankan chase.

Muralitharan bowled beautifully - most of his overs were at Yuvraj who was on a roll and yet couldn’t really get him away. Murali even bowled a maiden batting powerplay over.

The Sri Lankan chase was hard done with plenty of drama in the opening overs - Dilshan trying to go nuts and quick wickets. Jayawardene and Kandamby rebuilt but the process was onerous for a good part. Jayawardene though, looked determined to exorcise his 94 vs India in 2008 that had lost partners. But this time, he fell way short. Kandamby meanwhile was hanging around without making too much of an impression other than that he looked like a very slightly trimmer Ranatunga. But he would later almost pull off one of the finest-paced innings in recent times. Unfortunately - a crucial loss of strike for the 49th over after Murali was runout off the last ball of the 48th over, a brilliant 49th by Ishanth Sharma, loss of partners - all conspired to thwart Lanka despite amazingly coming close.

Don’t miss a Yuvraj Singh glare at Umpire Gamini after a close Kandamby LBW was denied off Zaheer (Yuvraj having got a poor one while batting).

There was also an amazing ‘undislodgeable bail’ thing happening today. Twice the ball crashed into the stump and the bails remained unmoved. This is something that has happened during the Australia-SA series also and possibly has to do with the stumps being deeply entrenched. Why the stumps are stuck so deep in is worth wondering about - perhaps the stump-mike and cam is related?

Also don’t miss Arun Lal’s comments when Ishanth Sharma and Suresh Raina crash into each other - “Yes, yes, bodies touching, balls there, in between.” Only Arun Lal would say that on air. In fact Lal was quite frisky tonight - when Ishanth was hit by a nut-like object thrown from the crowd Arun remarked - “Dispensed with one of his nuts”

Pre-Game: With India 1-0 up after their win in the 1st ODI, it’s going to be interesting to see how Sri Lanka react - Mendis in particular. Most of the Indian batsmen looked comfortable (relative to the 2008 series) playing him, and Sehwag will be back with Tendulkar at the top. Unfortunately Rohit Sharma sits out, but a personal favourite, Praveen Kumar will be back today.

More India vs Sri Lanka Highlights 2009






India II



SL Chase