Sri Lanka - Failure of formula

[Ashok]

There are two ways to look at it. Either this Sri Lankan side was over-estimated, despite being ranked No.2 when they landed here, or India simply made a fine side look ordinary. "I think they've only played as well as we've allowed them to play," said Greg Chappell when asked about Sri Lanka's plight in this series. In hindsight they probably didn't have too much back up when their primary cylinders failed to fire, and maybe one read too much into the ICC rankings as well.

It's interesting to trace how Sri Lanka got to be No.2 in the world. Since the World Cup in 2003, they've played six series at home, where, barring a series loss to Australia and a surprising reverse against New Zealand in the BA Cup, they were unstoppable. But it's their performance in the six away series that leaves one confounded about their standing. They triumphed against West Indies, a frail Zimbabwe and an erratic Pakistan, but lost to a strengthened Zimbabwe in Sharjah, were eliminated early in the Champions Trophy in England, and went down in the lone one-dayer in New Zealand. How was this enough to get to No.2? Because, bizarrely, the rankings completely ignore where one is playing.

Most teams enjoy home conditions but Sri Lanka at home often can be diametrically opposite to Sri Lanka away - in this decade, they've won a staggering 45 out of 57 matches at home. Dancing to the gentle tunes of the cymbals at home and strangulating the opposition is one thing, battling the noise and overcoming the chaos in the cauldrons of India is quite another. That's precisely why Sri Lanka needed a few of their key players to strike all the right notes early in the piece. Sanath Jayasuriya usually renders venues and pitches redundant; Chaminda Vaas starts the choke operation that the spinners continue; and Murali is, well, Murali. On the last day of the tour, Jayasuriya had been axed, Murali injured and Vaas, like for much of the series, was being flogged to different corners of the ground. Sri Lanka's windpipe was cut off early. There was little the rest could do.

Mahela Jayawardene, Marvan Atapattu and Kumar Sangakkara, fine batsmen all, had together played just eight matches in India and were freshers to these conditions. And the regular implosion of the batting line-up wasn't totally unexpected. Their support spinners, who have given India all sorts of problems back home, had usually been powerless away. Upul Chandana averages 22.95 at home, Jayasuriya and Arnold around 29, and Tillakaratne Dilshan 27. But none of them average less than 40 while playing away, with Arnold and Dilshan hardly bowling on their travels, and the treatment meted out to them on this tour shouldn't have come as a surprise. Today, spin was introduced as late as the 28th over with the game pretty much in the bag.

Their problems were further compounded by the new Powerplay rule and Atapattu admitted that they'd got used to a certain pattern of playing one-day games and were finding it tough to come to terms with the innovations. Sri Lanka often turned games in the middle overs and it was as if they had a standard formula to frustrate batsmen by using semi-defensive fields and relying on bowlers' nagging line. In this series, the five extra overs threw them off balance - apart from Mohali, when the match was all but sealed, India scored less than 30 in the third Powerplay only once. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, crossed 30 only once. Today, the difference was stark - India managed 43 while Sri Lanka made 14 - and it's a minor battle that tells you the story of the larger drama.

After the sixth game, Atapattu had said that the performance of Dilhara Fernando was one of the biggest pluses of the tour but India were so rampaging that they dismissed him for 72 runs in his ten overs today. Throughout the series, it's a side that often looked too restrained, too shackled and it was heartening to see Atapattu and Arnold share a fantastic counter-attacking partnership in the middle overs, when they added 133 runs at 6.28 runs per over. They used their feet to the spinners, improvised, dared to attack and expressed themselves with carefree abandon. It was a style of play that made them world champions and, for a brief hour at least, one was reminded of the joys that this side is capable of providing.