Same old feeling? Yes, in some ways it was. Thissara Perera it was! You could see the fear Indian bowlers had even before he had faced one ball. Dhoni had his homework done, and had set him an legside field in the powerplay and had all three fielders on the legside and asked the bowlers to bowl on the legs.
Its difficult anyway to bowl in the slog overs and to top it you ask them to bowl in an area of 6 inches??? Dhoni would know if he was a fast bowler!! Not his mistake, a senior maybe a Zak should've told him it's gonna be difficult. We bowled to his strengths and he played to our weakness. he cleared his front leg and would attempt to get bat to ball and aim on the offside...that's all it took and the ball would speed away to the boundary!
All i want to ask is, why could we not make him struggle. In his entire innings of 15 balls, Zak bowled one bouncer! Why did we not try some more of that? Some chin music when the pressure was on them could have done it. Instead we were scared of him and were trying to bowl fast and yorkers at him while at the other end Samaraweera milked the bowling for some singles managing his century.
Remember the times when we used to bowl to Jayasuriya's strength? Wide outside the off stump and have him caught at 3rd man or point? So, why could not we do the same thing for Perera? He is still new to the game, he could have faltered and given up under pressure...fact remains, we did not test him enough!
Now, let's look at the other side...let's go back home...here's a bowler...a fast bowler who bowled his heart out on a slow Indian wicket and got just rewards...a bowler by the name of Abhimanyu Mithun...this guy bowled as good as some of the top notch fast bowlers I have seen. Some experts do agree with me, if i can quote then i would like show you what Mr. Satish Vishwanaathan had to say about the lad -
on Tuesday it was the turn of 20-year-old speedster Abhimanyu Mithun, who all but sealed the final spot for the hosts with a most impressive display of fast bowling rarely seen on Indian soil.
From TOI - 6th Jan, 2010, Mumbai Edition!
Mithun bowled as fearlessly as he could and got the desired results. He was not afraid of the big occasion or the big match, he did what he knows best...bowl good balls. And that is what we struggled to do.
Agreed that ou bowlers did bowl pretty well and it was the due factor that came in and made it a little easier for the Lankans...but all said and done, we lost and thus we need to look and analyze where did we go wrong...!
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