India must be a very confident lot after their win against Australia at Adelaide and this could take a lot of cobwebs out of the heads of a lot of Indian players who had suffered relentless battering in the test series.
For me, it was an important knock for Dhoni and he should be thankful to the Almighty for having pulled it off in the last over with 13 runs to score of it.
This will increase the confidence of Dhoni as a batsman and captain. It is very important for a captain to contribute to his teams win as it helps him captaining the side a lot better.
Dhoni was not at his best both as a batsman and captain and I am sure this game will help him to come out better in the future. I have always believed that he is an outstanding ODI player and his one-day abilities are far better than his test match performances.
I am not at all surprised at the way he hit that massive six of Clyde Mckay. That has been his real strength and talent in ODI as he has done it so many number of times.
There has been a lot of talk about rotation and I still say it’s not a bad ploy when the tournament is so long and such big.
Most of these Indian players have been on the road for a long time and especially in a side which has kept losing, so it brings the mental fatigue in to play and also a drop in form especially when big games come.
This system allows Dhoni to give every player an opportunity to play games. There are lot of quality players in his side and will allow him to pick best players on form for the best of the three finals, which is so very important in such big tournaments.
India have started well in the ODI series. They are at par with Australia in terms of points and a win against Sri Lanka in the next match will push them a lot closer to the big final.
Sri Lanka did come close to beating Australia at Perth but they will have to raise their game considerably to get past India in this game.
The Sri Lankans have started the ODI series rather slowly. They have issues off the field which need to be settled.
It’s very hard for a team to keep playing after not been paid for long and this is a mental battle they have to overcome. They will need to be hungry to get past India because the current record has been pretty one-sided in favour of India.
They need their big guns in Sangakara and Mahela to perform and more importantly the skipper, who has been desperately out of form both in South Africa and here now.
He is batting at number 5 and it will not be a bad idea for him to go up the order and play the new ball with the field up. They have a lot of batting depth and it’s important he performs as because he is a match winner.
They will also play in Adelaide in conditions which are very similar and favourable with both the teams but the advantage for India would be that they have already played a game at the venue.
What will be important for India will be to back up in a day’s time as the game against Australia must have taken a lot of mental skill also. Even then what India must be proud of i
