Tri-Series: Dhoni out injured as India seek their first win

Rayudu flown in as India, Sri Lanka meet on Tuesday in search of their first points of the tri-series.
AFP

Dhoni gets treatment during Sunday's game.

India and Sri Lanka go in search of their first points of the Tri-Nation Series when they meet on Tuesday at Sabina Park as the preliminary phase of the competition reaches the halfway point.

India should be the more confident of the combatants in the Jamaican capital, although they will be without the services of inspirational leader Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who has flown back to India due to a strain in his right hamstring sustained during the game against the West Indies.

Ambati Rayudu has been named Dhoni's replacement for the remainder of the tri-series while stand-in captain Virat Kohli will lead the team.


Rayudu, who plays for Baroda in the Ranji Trophy and Mumbai Indians in the IPL, is yet to play his first international game but has been a consistent performer in domestic cricket. The 27-year-old now has a chance to become the first Indian cricketer to represent the country having played for the now-defunct Indian Cricket League.

With the West Indies completing contrasting victories over the other two teams and already on their way to Trinidad and Tobago, where the last three group matches and the final will be played from Friday, this duel of sub-continental neighbours almost has the feel of an eliminator.

While defeat for either side will not rule them out completely from making the final on July 11 at Queen's Park Oval, it will leave them having to win their two remaining matches in Port of Spain, a venue where the weather is notoriously fickle at this time of the year.

Dhoni's calm control of proceedings on the field were missed as much as his wicketkeeping on Sunday, yet Kohli ensured that the undisputed kings of One-Day International cricket made the home side battle all the way towards a modest target of 230, winning by just one wicket.

"We aren't too disappointed," Kohli stated after that match.

"Just one wicket made the difference in the end so it could have gone either way. We fought really hard."

While the weather at the start of the hurricane season in the Caribbean has so far been kind to the competition in Jamaica, both captains will be keen to win the toss.

That way they can give their bowlers first use of a pitch that has made run-scoring difficult in the first half of the day, only to flatten out in the afternoon, based on the evidence of the first two matches, in which the visiting captains called incorrectly and then struggled to build any sort of momentum at the crease.

Sri Lankan skipper Angelo Mathews gave his side's innings some respectability with an unbeaten topscore of 55 in the losing effort on Friday.

But it is not expected to be enough against an Indian team that is set to make an enforced change - Murali Vijay is the obvious option to replace Dhoni with Dinesh Karthik as wicketkeeper - that breaks a run of six consecutive matches with an unchanged eleven dating back to the start of the Champioms Trophy tournament in England.

Malik, Kamran Dropped From West Indies Probables

Karachi: The Pakistan selectors on Saturday decided to drop the senior trio of Shoaib Malik, Kamran Akmal and Imran Farhat from the probables list in the wake of team's failure in the Champions Trophy but at the same time recalled veterans Shahid Afridi and Younis Khan for West Indies tour.

A reliable source in the board said that 20-member probables list has been submitted to the Pakistan Cricket Board.

"The list also includes several new players who have done well at the domestic level or have played in the recent past for the national team," the source disclosed.

The new players in the list include openers Ahmed Shahzad and Khurrum Manzoor, middle order batsmen Sohaib Maqsood and Haris Sohail, all-rounders Hammad Azam and Muhammad Nawaz.

Faisal Iqbal, Umar Akmal and pace bowler Aizaz Cheema have been recalled.

"Wicketkeepers Adnan Akmal and Sarfaraz Ahmed are included in the probables list," he said.

The selectors had met with head coach Dav Whatmore in Lahore this week to discuss the performance of the team in the Champions Trophy and plans for the forthcoming tours.

Pakistan will play five one-day internationals and two T20 matches on their tour to the West Indies followed by one-dayers against Zimbabwe in mid August.

The team is due to leave on July 7 for the West Indies and it has been learnt that the selectors had submitted names to the board so that visa processing can start.

When attack is the best form of defence

The best way to survive and flourish on a pitch with variable pace and bounce is to adopt a more aggressive approach

Johnson Charles goes over the top, West Indies v India, West Indies tri-series, Kingston, June 30, 2013
Johnson Charles found perhaps the perfect way to play on a tricky track in Kingston © WICB Media
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Players/Officials: Johnson Charles | Rohit Sharma
Matches: West Indies v India at Kingston
Series/Tournaments: West Indies Tri-Nation Series
Teams: India | West Indies

Sample this - 11 maidens out of the 97 (completed) overs and 347 dot balls (59%) out of the 586 bowled in an ODI. Those are appalling stats coming from a match played between two sides that boast of the world's most dynamic players. Was it poor batting, were there demons in the pitch, or was it simply exceptional limited-overs bowling?

If it was poor batting then what explains 46 boundaries, including as many as 11 sixes, in the interim? Who was hitting those big ones? If there were indeed demons in the pitch, then it's difficult to fathom how batsmen from both sides lasted that long. And, it wasn't the last option either: the bowling, at no stage, looked menacing enough to architect those statistics.

So, what was the mystery behind some of the better stroke-makers of the cricket ball playing an altogether different brand of cricket? Well, it was indeed the pitch that dictated a certain kind of play, at least till the batsmen chose to take a little bit of risk. While there were no apparent demons in the pitch, the variable pace and bounce off the pitch ensured that getting away was really difficult.

Believe it or not, at Sabina Park during the second ODI between India and West Indies, hitting a four or a six was a lot easier than taking a single to rotate strike. The moment the batsman tried to place the ball in the gap, he ended up either offering a dead bat because the ball either arrived a little quicker or later than he expected or he couldn't hit the ball hard enough to beat the inner ring. Also with the new laws, the mandatory extra fielder inside the 30-yard circle added to the misery.

This pitch reminded me of the one I batted on in the Dhaka Premier League, a 50-overs-a-side tournament between clubs. The team batting first struggled through their quota of overs and managed only 175 runs on a slow and sluggish pitch that offered spinners a fair amount of assistance. Still, chasing less than four-an-over might stretch us a bit but should be achieved, or so we thought.

I opened the batting with the knowledge that scoring was going to be a little tricky, yet I knew if I spent time on the pitch, batting would eventually become easier for that's what I'd been conditioned to believe. I waited for the loose balls to come my way. On a pitch that offered variable bounce and pace, the margin of error was larger for the bowler, resulting in fewer hittable balls. My plan B was to take singles and rotate strike till I gauged the pace and bounce but that didn't happen either. I kept finding the fielders instead of gaps.

Then came the trickiest bit - a first in my career. Even when the loose balls were bowled begging to be punished, I couldn't hit them for boundaries. I was playing proper cricketing shots but the rewards weren't proportional to the effort. The cover drive wasn't traveling quick enough and the cut wasn't piercing the off side field either. I scratched around for a little longer before perishing.

That innings and the subsequent chat with a few players who were regulars in the Bangladesh circuit did much to decode these sort of pitches, and of course the way to deal with them. On such batting surfaces, rotating strike is difficult because the pace and bounce off the pitch is so inconsistent that you don't know when to bring the bat down to find the right timing or control the pace and direction of the ball off the bat to hit the gaps. If you keep trying to play the ball on its merit, you'll end up hitting it directly to the fielders all the time unless it's a rank long hop or a full toss.

The only way to score on such pitches is to adopt a slightly more aggressive approach and shelve the percentages on the balls that are in your hitting zone. You ought to take the odd risk, take the aerial route and hit a few boundaries to not only release but also transfer the pressure to the bowler; just sticking around will be playing into the bowlers' hands. That's exactly what Dinesh Karthik did against Marlon Samuels.

Rohit Sharma in the first innings and Johnson Charles in the second showed that if you are willing to take calculated risks, the rewards were forthcoming. Of course, you would also need a bit of luck to succeed but taking that punt is the best and perhaps the only way to succeed on such a pitch.

The pitch for the second ODI was the same one on which the first match between West Indies and Sri Lanka was played. If the same pitch is going to be used for the last match of the series in Jamaica on Tuesday, another laborious day for batsmen is in the offing.

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More power coming for umpires

Umpire

Cricket umpires will be given unprecedented power in a bid to crack down on ball tampering.

The International Cricket Council has announced changes where umpires can act on suspicions of ball tampering, even if they don't have firm evidence.

Umpires will be able to replace the ball if they have belief of tampering and give the captain a first and final warning.

If there's a second infringement, a five-run penalty will be awarded to the batting team and the captain will be reported.

The changes come into effect in October.

India look to shake off opening disappointment, take on Lanka

Kingston: Their unbeaten run brought to a halt, India would look to get over the disappointment of a narrow loss when they take on familiar sub-continental foes Sri Lanka in their second match of the tri-nation ODI series here on Tuesday.

The one-wicket loss to the West Indies yesterday ended India`s nine-match winning streak during which they lifted the Champions trophy in London last month. India had won four Tests against Australia and five matches in the recent Champions Trophy on the trot.

Tested by the conditions, the famed Indian batting struggled and even though the team`s bowlers did a commendable job, the hosts managed to snatch a win by the thinnest of margins.

The Indians also had to contend with skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni not taking the field during the West Indian innings due to the cramps he suffered while batting.

It is not clear whether Dhoni was merely dehydrated or was laid low by a hamstring injury. In case of a hamstring injury, Dhoni may not get enough time to recover and take the field on Tuesday.


On a pitch which did not exactly help stroke-making, Rohit Sharma shone with a patient half century.

Promoted to the role of opener during the Champions Trophy, Sharma seems at ease in the position and would be expected to come good against the Lankans too.

But the troika of Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli and Dinesh Karthik found the going tough in the tournament-opener and will have to adapt quickly to make an impact.

Suresh Raina, however, applied himself well for a 44 that was crucial to take India past 200.

The bowlers did their job commendably and could have pulled it off for India had they been given more runs to defend.

The pace trio of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma got the breakthroughs whenever they were given the ball and were ably supported by off-spinner R Ashwin, who also grabbed a couple of wickets.

Sri Lanka, on the other hand, were quite literally mauled in their opening match. They just about managed to post a little over 200 and were then left to contend with a raging Chris Gayle, who unleashed his fury in the most devastating manner.

The shock of that defeat would be difficult to get over for the island nation and it would be interesting to see how they cope with the prospect of having to contain a strong Indian line-up.


The over-reliance on senior batsmen Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara once again stood exposed with no batsman, apart from Angelo Mathews, contributing significantly in the previous match. The Lankans would have to strike as a unit as individual brilliance cannot shine through in every game.

Their bowlers too cut a sorry figure and did not have a clue on how to deal with Gayle.

Whether it was the pace duo of Lasith Malinga and Nuwan Kulasekara or msytery spinner Ajantha Mendis, the Lankan bowlers did not have anything going for them and would look for a reversal of fortunes against India.