Pride at stake for wounded Lankans in final battle

Colombo: It is understandable enough that India aim to wrap up their ODI series in Sri Lanka 4-1. But, as both captains have admitted a lot depends on the toss how the landscape of the last game will shape.

With Mahendra Singh Dhoni winning the two that mattered at Premadasa Stadium last Sunday and again on Wednesday, it has left Sri Lanka in the position they were last October when England won the five-match ODI series 3-2.

While India are unlikely to change their side, Sri Lanka, desperate to pull one back may look at a new batting line up. Although they have lost the series, there is a thought they can still salvage something with a facile victory.

And as Mahela Jayawardene has admitted with a grin that winning the toss might help as well as there is something extra in the pitch after the lights are switched on.

All of which suggests how the surface at Premadasa Stadium has changed in character to the way it played between 1999 and 2003 when sides batting second invariably won, or put big scores on the board.

For one thing the way the pitch is taking more spin at the end of the game than after the first few overs suggests that Sri Lanka's bowlers are not adjusting the way they should and the so-called M-Factor of Ajantha Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan has not been as effective as it was in Dambulla or the Tests.

Murali's record in the two games at Premadasa is one wicket for 104 runs at an economy rate of 5.47, which is well above his normal rate. Mendis has given away 99 runs in the two games at 4.95 and that is 1.30 runs above his career economy average.

It explains how, for a start, Suresh Raina has clicked on as a batsman, not only being able to read the two spinners, but also suggests how unlike Virender Sehwag who says, he read Mendis off the pitch, but has picked up the nuances of the bowler's variety.

He cast aside the spooky cluttered mind-game syndrome others seemed to have developed and took him on both times, winning the battle with two well organised and intrepid half-centuries. It displays how he worked out his own gameplan, following the advice of his captain who suggested it was up to them to find the Mendis measure.

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