PREVIEW
By Srian Obeyesekere
It will be a going through the motions Super Four for an already out of the Asia Cup Sri Lanka taking on high riding already insulated in the final India at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium in a back to square one worrying skipper Charith Asalanka whose long rebuilding quest in the last three to four years has ended on the rocks in the wake of two failed T20 world cup tilts. A failure which Sri Lanka Captain Charith Asalanka has consequent to the last loss to Pakistan, attributed to faulty player selections and a messed up coaching set up.
Given the current bad case scenario where poor batting in crunch decisive games has been the primary melting pot failure, there would be nothing wrong in giving batsman Janith Liyanage a try and as much yoyng Kamil Mishara another go.
Clearly, a running bad decision jinx in the Lankan batting has been the constant juggling of batsmen instead of a fixed order where proven batsmen like even Kamindu Mendis has not found the permanency of that much needed settled down confidence to doing his job with the bat.
Another best example of the unfixed was skipper Asalanka demoting the cameo half century up Dasun Shanaka in the game against Bangladesh from No 5 to 6 where erratic, inconsistent captaincy decisions of late have misfired.
Meanwhile, the over the moon Suryakumar Yadav’s team which has dominated the Asia Cup in a thunder of raw fire in an a conspicuous sweet savage redefining of the art of batting in this short format apparently derived from a now all familiar finger tips like IPL own backyard of a new ethos of fire brand stroke makers of T20 cricket by the dashing likes of the upfront Abhishek Sharma that has put India apart from the rest, will by large be a looking further away from a dead rubber Sri Lanka with arch foes Pakistan making a frantic leap forward to the finals for a third go at the Indians following two previous failed attempts. That Pakistan did show an improved performance in the last game in their batting, and the firepower to go past both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, particularly the bowlers led by Shefeen Shahid Afridi has seen a spring in the step of Pakistan traditionally known for their unpredictable nature. Their fast men with Hussain Talat teaming up with Afridi to yanking out Sri Lanka to following up by reducing Bangladesh to 124 for 9 in a touch and go super four run up to finally making a dash into the finals from a wracked journey has gone to lend a degree of hype to the final in a bigness of two traditional rivals for all India’s huge advantage between the arch rivals, now festered to a boiling point that has seen their cricket fired up by the political tensions between the two nations seeping into the game as witnessed by their last two meet ups in the done with handshakes protocol to a brewing bad blood enmity in their cricket.
