To make a place in the finals, India needs to win matches and win them with big margins; otherwise they would be forced to see Australia and Sri Lanka clashing in the finals of the CB series. Two consecutive defeats have reduced them to the lowest level on the points table which they topped till few days back.
WHAT A funny game! Only the other day India was on the top of the CB Series points’ table, while now they are at the bottom. Two defeats - by 110 runs to Australia and 51 runs to Sri Lanka yesterday reduced them to this position. Trailing Sri Lanka and Australia who each have a game in hand, India now needs a dramatic turnaround to stay alive in the tournament.
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Australia lie at the top of table with 14 points from five matches, and at the second spot are Sri Lanka with 11 from the same number of outings. Sri Lanka’s eight-wicket win over Australia on Friday earned them a bonus point, and their success in Brisbane has pushed them ahead of India.
For India, last two defeats were straight forward: the bowlers conceded too many runs and the batsmen failed to score the required runs. Virender Sehwag, the stand-in captain, said that they neither bowled well in the final ten overs nor batted well. “The way Sachin and Gambhir played in the beginning, I thought we could get a good start. We missed Dhoni in this game,” Sehwag was quoted by mid-day.com.
India’s highest run-getters in the CB Series so far are Gambhir (222), Virat Kohli (217) and Dhoni (191 runs). In the last two matches there have been individual contributions (Dhoni against Australia and Kohli and Irfan Pathan against Sri Lanka) but the rest were disappointing.
India’s batting just hasn’t been up to the mark .They will need something drastic to win handsomely from here on. India needs wins and big ones to get back into the best of three finals, according to cricketnext.in.
