What a nightmare! The change in skipper has barely changed fortunes, although it is hard to blame the captain for the collective batting on show in the first innings of the first of five one day internationals at Dambulla between India and Sri Lanka.

Expectedly Sri Lanka faced few problems chasing down India’s paltry target. Two wickets kept the Indians interestedly but barely. Mahela Jayawardene and Kapugedera ensured it was be a smooth ride, something Sri Lanka have got used to in the series and India have all the work from here to ensure this does not become a one sided affair.

Morning mayhem:

Virender Sehwag’s injury during training time yesterday was admittedly a big blow. After all, apart from the openers, no one in the Indian Test line up showed any real gumption or consistency. Therefore, the job for Mahendra Singh Dhoni had definitely become tougher. But this was as poor as it could get.
The batting appeared circumspect as the batsmen appeared never too certain about either strategy – whether to attack all out or play the cautious game. And they predictably paid the price! It seemed like a continuation of the mind set from the Test series where India failed to shake off the spin threat.
For all of Yuvraj Singh’s heroics in the warm up, Mendis is developing the habit fast of making a mockery of big names and it seems the break has done him and his form no harm. Perhaps the most critical of the wickets was Gautam Gambhir then who has had a close view of the Sri Lankan bowlers on offer and would have been expected to lend his experience of the tour thus far to the one day game.
There was promise but there was also faltering. And India’s failing was trying to thwart the spin that was now worth twenty overs instead of Muttiah Muralitharan’s ten. But the strategy was flawed in that team India did not look to play through the fifty overs which would have ensured a modest total, if not a challenging one. But India seemed trapped in only one lesson and they were not even making good practice of it.
It was always going to go downhill when the team decides to bat first on a batting conducive pitch and lose three wickets within the first twelve wickets. The trouble thereafter only built on as India found themselves at a hapless eighty-seven for seven in under thirty overs! Nothing to write home about and it was despicable. If the senior five are surreptitiously chuckling, it will only be because none of the youngsters showed the wherewithal to at least stick it out and give it a fight. Instead the indecisive prods and miscalculated, hasty cuts only meant easy regulation catches. For Sri Lanka, it is becoming another case of all in a day’s work.
The most uneasy aspect in the dressing room at the lunch break will be the fact that India do not necessarily have a Mendis in the line up to even have a marginal psychological scare for the Sri Lankan batsmen who must now look to devour the Indians for a marginal meal of 146.300510