Sniffing glue

ICC Champions Trophy 2006
Sri Lanka vs New Zealand

A convincing win for Sri Lanka, and yet another one-sided game. New Zealand didn't play well at all, and i think it was because they didn't read the pitch at all. They played it as if it was the same pitch that they played when they beat the South Africans, and they dissappointed everyone who thought that this was going to be a tough game esp after Sri Lanka were looking for a win following their loss to Pakistan.

I personally think that nothing should have been done to the pitch by applying the PVA glue to stick the cracks together:

1. Previous teams would be complaining that nothing was done to the pitch when they played on it (notably Graeme Smith, who came up with alot of criticism).
2. If this pitch was going to get special treatment in order to make it a better batting surface, then why not make all the pitches in the world as such? True that there was a fear that the cracks would have widened even more, but something else should have been done instead of creating an "artificial surface", like a change of venue. If they were planning to do that for the final, why not for this game?

In the end, New Zealand didn't make use of the pitch at all to put up a challenging total. The only bright sparks in the match were Vettori's innings, and Patels bowling that troubled the Lankan batsmen for a while.

I mentioned in my previous column that Lanka needed an extra batsman and had to drop Dilhara. That's what they did, but there are still a few areas they need to improve on:

1. Extras. Too many of them today, even without Dilhara. This is an area that seriously needs to be worked on. Surprising to see Vaas bowl most of the extras today.
2. A commentator at the match mentioned that Lanka never really accelerate during the latter part of their innings after their openers provide a rapid start. This happened today when they took ages to reach the target in the end, and also in the Pakistan game, when they managed just over 250 after it seemed like they were going to make 3o0 comfortably. The same scenario was seen against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, when higher scores were expected from them.
3. Not only the batting failed to provide the appropriate finishing touches, the bowling did too. The last wicket partnership survived 11 long overs today, and even in the game against Bangladesh only 9 wickets fell.

Nonetheless, Lanka came up with a very professional approach to win the game and now anyone from Group B has a chance to go through to the next round. This tournament is getting more and more interesting, but I hope to see less one-sided matches as well.

My final say:

Today's game probably showed that it doesn't help creating an "artificial pitch". Plus it isn't fair on all teams taking part. Let's see whether they continue to use this new approach or not. And whether we will see more boring one sided games in this tournament.

It was also nice to see Murali back in his wicket-taking ways. The was he bamboozled the batsmen, esp Oram, was really refreshing and entertaining. I hope he continues this awesome form. The spin wizard is back!