Rohit Sharma's Brilliance Masks Pointless Nature of India-Sri Lanka Series

After Rohit Sharma's amazing double-century, Sri Lanka's bowlers may want a strong word with their cricketing colleagues from the Caribbean the next time they face the West Indies.

It was supposed to be Dwayne Bravo's side attempting to tame India's fearsome top order. Instead, following the dispute between the players and the West Indies Cricket Board, it was the hapless Sri Lankans turn to face the music.

Parachuted in for a five-match tour, Angelo Mathews' side have looked undercooked and largely uninterested in the opening four matches, culminating in the horror show at Eden Gardens.

That's to take nothing away from Rohit Sharma, who produced one of the most spectacular innings of all-time. After being given a life on four, he made the most of his good fortune, reaching a half-century from a steady 72 balls.

The 27-year-old then took just 28 balls to move from 50 to 100, then 66 more to get from 100 to 250! By the time he was dismissed with the final ball of the innings, he had 264 to his name from just 173 deliveries.

"

Rohit from 79 (91) to 192 (148): 4,0,6,4,4,0,1,1,1,0,6,4,0,1,4,1,0,1,4,4,0,6,4,0,1,1,1,1,1,4,1,0,1,1,1,6,1,0,1,0,2,1,0,0,6,1,1,4,4,4,1,4,1

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) November 13, 2014"

To put into perspective just how dominant Rohit was, consider that Robin Uthappa shared a stand of 128-runs from just 58 balls in which he contributed just 16.

The man from Nagpur's spectacular effort, which contained 33 fours and nine sixes, secured his place in the record books. He is the first man to top 250 in an ODI and also the first man to score two ODI double centuries.

"

It took 11 matches and 3.5 years before a team totalled 264 in ODIs. How times have changed.

— Ric Finlay (@RicFinlay) November 13, 2014"

As hugely impressive as Rohit's effort was (and it really was), he was aided and abetted by a ragged Sri Lankan side.

The warning signs were there in the first three matches which India won by 169 runs and twice by six wickets. Fielding, so often the barometer of the mood of a team, hints at a deep low in the Sri Lankan camp.

Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane and now Rohit have all reached three-figures in this series after being dropped early in their innings. The wretched Sri Lankan bowling in Kolkata was matched with chaos in the field. Dropped catches, fumbles over the boundary rope and misfields aplenty.

"

Absolutely love watching @ImRo45 Bat.... Great all round game... Will have a great WC IMO.. #IndvsSL

— Michael Vaughan (@MichaelVaughan) November 13, 2014"

The Sri Lankans looked like they wanted to be anywhere but Eden Gardens. And by rights they should have been elsewhere, preparing for the slightly more genteel challenge posed by the likes of Alastair Cook and Ian Bell.

Of course the West Indian disappearing act left a big hole for the Indian board to fill. But summoning a side to play a high-profile series at such short notice is a risky strategy. Money talks though. There are stadiums to pack, TV contracts to maintain and coffers to fill.

But who benefits from such scheduling? Certainly not the Sri Lankans. And just how useful is this series going to be for India heading into the World Cup? It's one thing to fill your boots against a side neither interested nor capable, quite another to do so in the frantic atmosphere of a World Cup Down Under.

The knock against One Day Internationals is that there is so many of them, they merge into one, largely forgettable, mass of mediocrity. Will anyone remember much of England's seven-match (seven!) tour of Sri Lanka a year from now? Probably not.

The same would likely have been the case in this mismatch of a series without Rohit's exploits. There are too many seemingly pointless matches and series on the international calendar. Sometimes less is more and the scheduling of ODIs is a case in point.