Yesterday was an important day.
Barak Obama was sworn in.
The Mrs had her B’day.
Pakistan were playing cricket again.
And Mahela scored his 76th run in 11 games.
Pakistan.
Pakistan, Pakistan.
Oh how they whipped us, smashed us and pulled our pants down and played with our balls. Not in a Homo way, but in a dominating ‘Whose the bitch now’ kind of way.
SL opened with Dilshan, with him in form it wasn’t a bad idea and it paid off. Two sluggers cant be a bad move with PPs.
King Sanga played one of his ‘I’m going to do just enough to be mentioned in the cricinfo bulletin’ innings.
Mahela tried to tell himself he was in form, he wanted to believe in it so bad. So he tried repeating it over and over before bed. He actually thought the hundred against Bangladesh was good, He told other players to tell him he was the best, ‘da man’ to psyche himself up.
bROAdman- who had a batting average of 85 in his ODI career at one point ran in and bowled a ball just outside Mahela’s off stump, a few minutes later Mahela was in the showers.
Playing over and over against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe doesn’t help when you have to play Pakistan and India.
But when you play them and cant get past 200 if your life depended on it, means you are going to be slipped one up the rear, so smooth as if on lubrication that you wont even know it till its 1 run to get with 8 wickets in hand.
In this glittering demise of our ODI form, SL have always had found salvation in our bowlers. Pakistan werent having any of it, they hatched plans in the dark against Splendid and executed them so well that Mendis looked like he was just another bowler.
Sri Lanka’s lack of firepower when the ball is new is a big minus. There are no swing bowlers, every bowler is a skiddy type who can nip it off the seam. For Thushara to replace Vass he has to learn to swing the ball. On these dead pitches swing is worth its weight in gold.
There is a chance this will be a whitewash, but Sri Lanka knows they are capable of much more than this.
They are playing against a cricket starved team who wants to show the world what they missed.
Sri Lanka needs to realise that play time’s over, this is the real deal and if we dont get our shit together we could be next to Bangladesh in the rankings before we know what went up the back door.
They pulled down Chubarak’s pants and found no balls.
On the Day of Barak, Moo-barak exited stage for hopefully the last time. The run outs show he lacks the mental strength and balls to cut it at the highest level.
I think blindly attacking Splendid is the best tactic any team has formulated to combat him. If it comes off you get some runs and when SL is defending a small total, induce panic in Mahela. If it doesn’t come off you are only bowing to the inevitable of getting out. Let’s call it the Dilshan (TM) Method of Batting
Would like to see this series, but no-one’s putting it on…
There doing much better today Damith. If they lose scoring 290 and having the opposition 17/3 then I think their needs to be not only an inquiry but an inquisition!
Old Batsman, you can watch it in a number of formats for free on the web but the quality of picture isn’t always top notch.
There’s a great guy called Colly who has a blog called Live Cricket Links who provides the URLs.
Below is the thread for today’s match.
http://www.cricketlivelinks.com/watch-online/1143/pakistan-vs-sri-lanka-2nd-odi-free-live-cricket-streaming/#comments
thanks Nesta, I’ll give it a go
Hardly dare venture over here Damith as I knew you would be raging – and your site at the best of times makes my computer freeze – too much testosterone I guess. Like the OB – would LOVE to see this series which looks like an absolute cracker so shall try the link next time! Thanks Nesta
insideEdge, that was a brilliant comment. The TM part was a nice pun.
Inside>The Dilshan TM method only works for guys like God Sehwag and Sanath. It was strange to see Mendis getting whacked about the park, but I did think he bowled poorly, seems like Splendid gets bothered when a bit of pressure is on him
TOB> Try looking for online links on places like Justin TV
Nesta> Cheers for the links and ya we did stage a comeback, and how !
Ceci> Really ? Do you use IE or FF ? Im more gentler these days with the lads, but I have a short fuse which can blow any minute