Sri lanka will be very disappointed with the way they played in 1 ODI. They were not able to put India in any sorts of trouble. India dominated from the very first ball to the very end.
From the beginning strike rotation was a big problem for them , bastswomen got stuck on one end of the wicket most of the times. They just managed to make 8 runs in first 5 overs with no boundaries. Similarly they managed only 18 in first 10 and the same story continued in the entire match and moreover they kept on losing wickets at regular intervals which kept them under pressure all the times. And in the end they were restricted to 98 runs in 35.1 overs which isn’t a good total even in T20’s . Only Sripali Weerakkody made some descent 26 runs in 32 balls.
So it’s important for Sri Lanka to begin their innings on a good positive note, utilizing the powerplay in best possible way. Hitting boundaries regularly makes a bowlers life difficult, they then try different things and eventually end up losing all the rhythm. Most importantly strike rotation is very crucial in limited over cricket, most of the runs scored by a team comes from single and doubles.
So instead of defending and getting past a tough phase is not the best way to deal in ODI’s, it’s better to look for scoring opportunities. Heavy responsibilities lies on shoulders of captain Chamari Athapaththu, the team needs to play around her, she just got stuck on one end in the first match and made 33 in 93 balls. So others effort will make her job much more easy.
While their bowling doesn’t look impressive either, they need to ball in right areas early in the innings not leaking runs easily.
Two young Indians made their debut in the first match, Wicket keeper batswoman from Chandigarh Taniya Bhatia and Tamil Nadu’s 23 year old allrounder Dayalan Hemalatha.
Taniya Bhatia’s inning of 28 off 17 (which includes 3 fours and a six) in the final of Women T20 Challenge earned her a place in the national squad. Since India is in a dire need of hitters this wasn’t suprising at all . She was preferred over much experienced Sushma Verma and another young sensation Nuzhat Parween. She needs to prove her worth to the team otherwise it will be tough for her to remain in the squad . Moreover she needs to work on her wicketkeeping as well because Sushma is much better in that department and one or two mistakes by keepers sometimes proved costly . So it will be very interesting to see her performing in upcoming matches.
If we talk about Dayalan Hemalatha ,her story of getting into the India team was similar to that of Taniya , she made 48 runs off 56 balls in the final of Women T20 Challenger which earned her a national call.
India got few good off spin allrounders like Deepti Sharma, Harmanpreet Kaur and Jemimah Rodriguez. So her journey is not going to be an easy one but beautiful stories are the one that had a tough road.
This series is not going to be tough for India it means they can promote these two up in the order so that they can get enough chance to show their potential.
This is just the beginning of this long series and it will be excited to see both the sides put on some competitive and exciting cricket on the field.
