India Sri Lanka 5th One dayer at Ranchi - Kedar Jadhav and Dickwella make debut

You can be forgiven, if you are not watching the 5^th ODI between India and Sri Lanka at Ranchi. Ardent followers generally will see every match - Jharkhand States Cricket Association International Cricket Stadium  is situated in Ranchi, the hometown of MS Dhoni.  Inaugurated in Jan 2013, the state-of-the-art venue is one of the best stadiums in India.

May be they came here as replacement for the WI who abandoned the tour midway …. The Series was touted to be between two World Champions in One Dayers – but it has been a nightmare of a tour for Lankans. At each press conference, Angelo Mathews speaks of improving the catching, or the batting, or the bowling, only for his team to transplant their mistakes from the last match to the next. So many Indian batsmen have made merry – with Rohit Sharma creating a new World record with his 264. There have been some uncharitable remarks stating that he would find the going tough in Australia and elsewhere – while it may not be too easy, it is not fair to take away the credit of a world record achieved a grand Eden Gardens.  If scoring at sub-continent wickets is as easy as it is written to be, there have been hundreds of matches involving various touring Teams – and that would not take away the credit from the 4 double hundreds made by Indians (Sachin, Sehwag and Rohit Sharma).  There will be chasm between the conditions over here and those downunder – so Srilanka need not panic but it does augur well for India and for those who have succeeded. 

Rarely we have seen a Series with India dominating so much – and a whitewash a distinct possibility – India can experiment more.  Today Maharashtra right-hander Kedar Jadhav made his international debut - Suresh Raina made way for him.  Kedar Jadhav is an attacking Maharashtra middle-order batsman who came into the limelight with a 29-ball 50 for Delhi Daredevils on his IPL debut. 

There is another debutant – an  attacking left-hand wicketkeeper-batsman, Niroshan Dickwella – another Lankan with a big name -  ‘Dickwella Patabendige Dilantha Niroshan Dickwella’ – just 21 years of age.  He has already played in 3 tests with 72 as highest.

In his debut test, Dickwella was fined 10% of the match fee and received an official reprimand, for claiming an unfair catch on day three of the second Test against South Africa. He was found to have breached article 2.1.8 of the code, which concerns conduct that is either "contrary to the spirit of the game" or "brings the game into disrepute". The incident occurred in the seventh over of the day - the 59th of South Africa's first innings - when AB de Villiers gloved a ball from Suranga Lakmal down the leg side. Dickwella collected the deflection on the bounce, and immediately threw the ball in the air and appealed, while the batsman stood his ground. Umpire Nigel Llong then conferred with square leg umpire Richard Kettleborough before sending the decision to third umpire Billy Bowden. Replays conclusively showed the ball had bounced inches short of Dickwella's gloves.

Incidentally do you know that India lost their first ever One dayer against Sri Lanka – that was way back in June 1979, in 2^nd WC at Manchester.  Bandula Warnapura and Srinivasan Venkatraghavan were the Captains.  Playing first Lanka made 238 for 5 in allotted 60 overs,  Wettimuny, Dias and Mendis made half centuries.  Chasing 239, Indians were allout for 191 – Vengsarkar topscored with 36; Gavaskar (26); Anshuman Gaekwad (33); Viswanath (22) Brijesh Patel (10) Kapil Dev (16) Mohinder Amarnath (7) – all failed.  

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

16^th Nov. 2014.