Tag Archives: one-dayers

Sri Lankan Pessimists Should Not Let Facts Hold Them Back

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First we had the Sangakkara speech. Now we have Island Cricket blog complaining about the choices that poor Sri Lankan captains have to live with. I would be more sympathetic if there were any facts that made sense. For example:

So, sanath played a 20-20 and a one day international as well. And now, when young dinesh chandimal has shown the world that what an great talent he is, with one sparkling century followed by equally enterprising half century, we can imagine what would have been the possible result, had young chandimal played those two matches, specially the 1st one day international, instead of veteran sanath.

I guess maybe Sri Lanka may have won by 10 wickets instead of the miserable 9-wicket victory in the Twenty20 match. In the first ODI, Sri Lanka were 121 all out in 27 overs, a collective failure of the entire team. So, Chandimal would have saved them? Maybe I should help out with Chandimal’s resume:

And now, when young dinesh chandimal has shown the world that what an great inconsistent talent he is, with an innings of 5 runs from 7 balls followed by one sparkling century followed by a duck from 5 balls followed by an equally enterprising half century

Wait, there is more:

selectors perfectly managed a blunder by including 29 year old thilina kadamby in the team. Whatever his age is, it’s not a matter, but concerned is that he is such an out dated player, especially for one day cricket. And, now you cant dare to imagine even, that he was the national team’s caption for lone twenty-20 match of England tour. It was an ridiculous decision and team suffered through out the one day series, because of it. He managed just 36 runs in four matches, and eventually was being dropped before final match.

Yes, you cannot imagine that he was the captain for the Twenty20 match which, to repeat, Sri Lanka made a terrible mess of by only winning by 9 wickets and not allowing Kandamby to bat and show what a miserable failure he was as a captain and one day batsman.

I also suppose the selectors forced Dilshan not to drop someone who only made 17 runs in the 5 matches. I am pretty sure that the team suffered throughout the one day series because of it. And that person was not even eventually dropped before the final match. Oh, he cannot drop himself? Oh, well.

Sachin Tendulkar as Opener in New Zealand

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Going by some of the comments on this blog, I think quite a few Tendulkar fans do not know how he became India’s opening batsman in one-dayers. Here is the information right from the master himself:

82 (off 49 balls) against NZ as opener in 1994

I was the vice-captain then and our regular opener Navjot Singh Sidhu woke up with a stiff neck. I requested Azhar (Mohammad Azharuddin) and Ajit Wadekar (coach) to “just give me one opportunity and I am very confident of playing some big shots. And if I fail, I’ll never ever come to you again”.

I remember playing cricket on the same day (March 27, 1994). Since the match was in New Zealand, it took place much early with respect to Indian Standard Time. So we could go and play in the afternoon. And everyone who watched Tendulkar’s innings wanted to imitate it and belt the ball to every part of the ground. A defining innings in every sense of the word.