Calm and collected India win with precision timing | Daily News
Hero Nidahas trophy tri-nation T20 series review

Calm and collected India win with precision timing

Victorious Indian team with the Nidahas Trophy
Victorious Indian team with the Nidahas Trophy

Host Sri Lanka and India were the two teams favoured to meet in the final of the Hero Nidahas trophy tri-nation T20 at the start of the series. This assessment came from India - although being weakened by the absence of five of their regular players (who were rested) proving to be still a strong side and on Sri Lanka’s victories against Bangladesh across all three formats on their recent tour there.

However as the experts would always say without any hesitation that T20 cricket is the most unpredictable of the three formats because any team on the day could upset the odds and win. This is what happened in the Hero Nidahas trophy series that was played to celebrate the country’s 70th year of independence. Bangladesh the least favoured of the three teams to make it to the final turned the form book upside down to beat Sri Lanka in back to back matches in the league stage to qualify to meet India in the final. Even going into the final India who had beaten Bangladesh twice in the league stage were odds on favourites to lift the trophy. But they nearly never did for the way Bangladesh fought back like tigers as they are referred to often. India was stretched to the limit and they had to bring out all their IPL experience in the form of Dinesh Karthik to clinch a win off the last ball.


kusal Perera

They were also to a great extent buoyed-up by the backing the entire Premadasa Stadium gave them. Incensed by the unruly behavior of the Bangladeshi cricketers on and off the field during their league match against Sri Lanka, the fans turned out in their thousands to support India, something which they have not done for decades.

India came for the series with a side that was top heavy in inexperience in the bowling department but they ended up dominating the bowling averages with three of them occupying the top three spots and 18-year-old off-spinner Washington Sundar not only emerging as the leading wicket-taker (with Yuzvendra Chahal) with eight wickets but also picking up the Player of the Series award. The Tamil Nadu spinner came to Sri Lanka having appeared in only one ODI and one T20I in his brief career but distinguished himself during the tri-nation series as a player with a future.

India were however balanced in their batting with the recall of former batsman Suresh Raina and with the presence of experienced batters like skipper Rohit Sharma who led the team exceptionally well getting the best out of his inexperienced squad of players, Shikhar Dhawan, Lokesh Rahul, Manish Pandey and Dinesh Karthik. A loss in the series lung-opener against Sri Lanka didn’t quite deter them it only made them stronger for the rest of the matches which they won with clinical precision.

Full credit to Bangladesh for the way they performed in the series Mahmudullah led them admirably for a major part of the league stage before the appointed captain Shakib Al Hasan took over for the crucial and final league match against Sri Lanka and for the final. All-rounder Shakib’s presence in the team following a finger injury gave Bangladesh that extra impetus to perform the way they did.

Former captain Mushfiqur Rahim played a match winning innings of 72 not out in Bangladesh’s record run chase of 215 against Sri Lanka in a league match. He backed this performance up with another similar knock against India but Bangladesh fell short by 17 runs, Mushfiqur, Tamim Iqbal, Sabbir Rahman and Mahmudullah were the key performers for Bangladesh in their batting, while fast bowlers Rubel Hossain and Mustafizur Rahman were outstanding for them in the bowling department.

India’s victory meant that they were the best team in the tournament and to do so with a virtually second string team that was sans captain Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya – all match winners showed their bench strength, that even their second side was good enough to beat the full strength teams of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.



Washington Sundar

Sri Lanka who began the series in a flourish by beating India fell away towards the latter stages to lose their remaining three league games twice to Bangladesh. They have a few areas to improve in this format and the balance of the team was also not right in certain matches with more emphasis being laid on all-rounders at the expense of a specialist batsman.

One area that Sri Lanka must address strongly is the slow over rate that has become a result of not only the bowlers taking longer than usual to bowl their overs but the amount of time wasted by the captain having chats with senior players between overs or in the middle of an over. This unnecessary waste of time resulted in Dinesh Chandimal being suspended for two matches that was crucial to Sri Lanka’s chances of qualifying for the final.

The other factor that went against Sri Lanka was their bowling which just didn’t have the resources to contain or take wickets during power plays and at the death.

The Sri Lankan top order with Kusal Mendis and Kusal Perera (at no. 3) – the two main run-getters for them gave the side good starts, but their contributions were not converted into winning ones with a weak middle order that was overloaded with all-rounders some of them half-baked and do not deserve to be in the side for they can neither contribute with bat or ball.

For instance for the return game against India, Sri Lanka replaced batsman Chandimal with fast bowler Suranga Lakmal thus weakening the batting. Lakmal who was playing his first match of the series bowled only two overs for 19 runs. What a waste. Mind you Sri Lanka could come up with a total of 152-9 that was hardly competitive. Then for the crucial return match against Bangladesh they stuck to the same combination replacing only two fast bowlers, but were still short of a specialist batsman. Why a batsman in the caliber of Dhananjaya de Silva (who can also bowl off-breaks) was not considered is rather strange.

Sri Lanka was left to pay a heavy price for these lopsided selections when they were ousted from a place in the final. But the fans found another nation for them to support in the final, and they were not disappointed.

Sri Lanka Cricket for all the controversies they are shrouded with, with their administration should be lauded for conducting an excellent tournament which left no stone unturned towards the manner in which it was held over the two weeks.


Add new comment