You know how much things have changed when the the favored team beats the underdogs but it feels like an upset! Sri Lanka played a very good came of cricket last night and finally managed to take down the Indian squad. This came at a pivitol time for the Sri Lankans, who, re-moralized, may be able to ride the momentum to finish off the series 3-4. Why do I say this?

Well, first you must understand that India was playing many of their rookies last night. And while they did a commendable job in the field, ( Suresh Raina was amazing in particular) their bowling was not up to our usual high standards. The Indians really suffered from the loss of Sachin Tendulkar, Irfan Pathan and Harbhajan Singh. To combat the weak spinners, India was forced to depend on its batters, who failed to break 300 against Sri Lanka’s experienced bowlers.

But now that India has lost, they cannot change their team. They already have the series in the bag, and now they are resting their more experienced players and letting the rookies play. How would India look if they suddenly took out all their rookies?

But going 4-3 might not be the worst thing for India. Their young players would gain valuable experience, their veterens get some much needed race, India’s already taken the series of seven, and if the young guns pull out a victory, India looks amazing.

In other news, Indian players are rising in the ranks. Rahul Dravis had broken the top 10, rising 17 spots to seventh. Dhoni shot up an incredable 30 spots, and is now ranked 24th in the official one-day international (ODI) rankings for batsmen. But for every positive action there is a negative reaction. Naturally, the Sri Lankan players are falling.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 7th, 2005 at 4:17 pm and is filed under Cricket. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.