Asia Cup 2008 Live ScoreBoard : India v/s Sri Lanka
July 5, 2008
Sri Lanka will look to their new spinning sensation Ajantha Mendis to defend their Asia Cup title against batting juggernauts India when the two teams meet in the final here on Sunday.
The 23-year-old from Moratuwa has bowled impressively in a tournament dominated by batsmen, and after going wicketless in the first match took 5-22 against United Arab Emirates and 4-47 against Pakistan to lead his team into the final.
Sri Lanka rested him in the Super League match against India on Thursday after they had already qualified for the final.
Captain Mahela Jayawardene played down the hype around his unorthodox spinner, who has six different deliveries in his armoury.
“We are not going to put lot of pressure on the guy,” said Jayawardene of Mendis, who has been in the limelight since making his debut against the West Indies earlier this year.
Sri Lanka won only eight of their last 22 one-day internationals before this tournament.
“We set ourselves a goal to get into the finals, we now need to focus hard. After trying a few things, which we wanted to try (against India), we have an idea of exactly how we want to go about in the final,” said Jayawardene.
The pitch at National Stadium will help his spinners, Mendis and off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, he added.
“We now have played six-seven matches on the squares, which are bound to deteriorate, and the spinners are getting enough spin on the ball. We’ve been very successful batting first, putting runs on board and defending.”
Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni admitted it would be a tough final.
“We are playing Sri Lanka, a very good team, so we expect it to be tough, but we are ready for all kinds of challenges in this final,” said Dhoni, whose team lost to Pakistan in the final of the tri-series in Dhaka last month.
Dhoni hoped his openers would once again set the pace.
While the Indian bowlers have not made much of an impression on the batting-friendly track at the National stadium, the batsmen have made amends by chasing down big totals in the tournament so far.
Blazing starts from the pair of Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag have so far set the pace for India and captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni will be hoping that the two openers click again so that there is less pressure on the middle order batsmen.
Thrice in the super league stage the batsmen either piled up or chased big totals and their only defeat in the competition was the one to Pakistan in the super league stage when the bowlers could not defend a total of 308.
Irfan Pathan, who returned to the side against Pakistan after missing the first three games due to a side strain, has been most expensive and the weak link in the bowling line up for the Indians.
Teams:
Sri Lanka :
Mahela Jayawardene (captain), Kumar Sangakkara, Sanath Jayasuriya, Chamara Silva, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Chamara Kapugedera, Ajantha Mendis, Nuwan Kulasekera, Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas, Thilan Thushara, Kaushal Weeraratne, Dilhara Fernando, Mahela Udawatte, Jehan Mubarak.
India :
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Robin Uthappa, Irfan Pathan, Yusuf Pathan, Praveen Kumar, R.P. Singh, Ishant Sharma, Piyush Chawla, Pragyan Ojha, Manpreet Gony.
Umpires: Simon Taufel, Australia, and Tony Hill, New Zealand.
TV Umpire: Zameer Haider, Pakistan. Match Referee: Alan Hurst.
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