With two defeats in three games in the Zimbabwe tri-series, Team India will be under severe pressure to save face as they take on Sri Lanka in a must-win game today
With two defeats in three games in the Zimbabwe tri-series, Team India will be under severe pressure to save face as they take on Sri Lanka in a must-win game today.
The batting that looked good in the first two matches failed miserably in the last match against Zimbabwe. The opening pair of Dinesh Karthik and Murali Vijay have consistently under performed and have been too slow coming off the blocks. The pair will have to step up, as India will need a blazing start from them if they are to have any chance of survival.
Suresh Raina's boys are now left with only a mathematical possibility of making the final. They need to beat Lanka by a huge margin and then hope that the islanders mirror their previous performance against Zimbabwe.
India now have four points and a big win over Sri Lanka will take them to nine, courtesy the bonus point. Then they will have to sit back and hope Sri Lanka beat Zimbabwe by a big margin -- the hosts sit on nine points as well with a much superior net run rate.
However, a moderate victory over Sri Lanka would do if Tillakaratne Dilshan's men lose to the hosts in the final match, but that won't be something to count on.
The team will need to improve in all departments of the game by leaps and bounds to have any chance of pulling it off against Sri Lanka. The inexperienced bowling attack looks very fragile and lacks tooth with none of the bowlers looking threatening.
It will be interesting to see which three bowlers Raina picks, as Ashok Dinda, Umesh Yadav, Pragyan Ohja and Vinay Kumar have all been equally inconsistent. Amit Mishra should retain his place being the most experienced bowler in the side.
