Why India Falied to Achieve a Clean Sweep Against Sri Lanka

India lost an ODI match to Sri Lanka on Feb. 8 but won the ODI series 4-1. It failed to achieve a clean sweep. There were many reasons for this faliure, but the main reasons were as follows:

1. Poor performance by most of the batsmen.

2. Poor performance by most of the bowlers.

3. Poor decision of the captain to use too many bowlers.

The Indian team had made a lot of changes in their team for the final ODI against Sri Lanka to give players a chance to play international cricket for the first time or after a long time.

The team consisted of Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, M.S. Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma, Laxmipathy Balaji, and Ravinder Jadeja.

Sri Lanka, too, had made some changes, but they wanted to prevent India from achieving a clean sweep.

The Sri Lankan team consisted of Tilkaratne Dilshan, Sanath Jaysuriya, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jaywardene, Chamara Kapugedera, S. Kadamby, Farveez Mahroof, K. Kulasekera, Thilan Thushara, M. Muralitharan. and Ajantha Mendis.

The Sri Lankan innings started off well as Jayasuriya and Dilshan put up 66 runs for the first wicket in 10 overs. Jayasuriya got out on 37 made of just 35 balls including 7 fours.

Then Dilshan and Sangakkara took the innings to 209 in 32.5 overs until Sangakkara got out on 84 made of 70 balls including 8 fours and a six.

Then Kadamby chipped in with 26 and got out in the 42nd over and Sri Lanka were 255 for 3 in 41.1 overs. Unfortunately Dilshan got out on 97 narrowly missing his century and Sri Lanka were 255 for 4 in 41.3 overs.

Then wickets started falling at regular intervals. Pitchhitter Mahroof made a quick 32 of 23 balls including 3 fours and a six. The small contribution from the others and the extras took the Sri Lankan score to 320 for 9 in 50 overs.

The Indian Bowling line up consisted of 9 bowlers, out of which only three performed well. No bowler had an economy rate of less than 4.00.

Ishant Sharma (10 0 60 3), Yuvraj Singh (6 0 39 2) and Suresh Raina (6 0 24 0) were the bowlers who bowled useful spells. Some credit should be given to Irfan Pathan for picking up the wicket of the dangerous Dilshan.

The Indian innings started shakily as both Sehwag, Raina, Gambhir and Rohit Sharma lost their wickets early and India were 85 for 4 in 15 overs. Then Yuvraj (73 of 62 balls) and Dhoni (53 of 58 balls) took the Indian score to 121 for 5 in 21.1 overs.

Yuvraj fell in the 22nd over and Dhoni fell in the 26 overs after which India were 138 for 6 in 25.1 overs. Yusuf Pathan, Irfan Pathan, Laxmipathy Balaji, and Ishant Sharma got out without moving into double figures.

But debutant Ravider Jadeja played a good innings of 60 of 77 balls to take the Indian score to 252. He remained not out on 60 and the Indians were all out on 252 in 48.5 overs.

The Sri Lankan bowling line up consisted of 7 bowlers out of which 6 picked up wickets and out of those six bowlers four picked up 2 wickets each. The lowest economy rate was recorded by Muralitharan which was 4.10.

Kumara Sangakkara got the Man of the Match and Yuvraj Singh got the Man of the Series as India won the series 4-1.