SL creams Bangladesh

Sri Lanka bought Bangladesh back down to earth with a convincing 199 run victory. Bangladesh, who must have had their hopes and expectations high after their wins against New Zealand in the warmup game and India in their earlier league game, were comprehensively outplayed in all departments of the game. To everyone's surprise, their fielding let them down with lots of dropped catches and missed run out opportunities and once SL had 318 on the board, it was always going to be a difficult task chasing.

The drubbing affects Bangladesh's chances of qualifying if India wins against Sri Lanka. If India loses, then Bangladesh just needs to win against Bermuda to go through to the super eights. But if India manages to win against Sri Lanka, I think it is almost going to be impossible for Bangladesh to qualify. Bangladesh would have to make up for the thumping loss against Sri Lanka in addition to beating Bermuda by a huge margin like India and Sri Lanka did (assuming India is not going to trash Sri Lanka).

Anyway, the match between India and Sri Lanka on Friday should be a cracker of a contest. And I totally back the Indian team to pick themselves up and get past Sri Lanka. The key to winning the game is how Indians tackle Malinga and Muralitharan (Vaas will bowl at his economical best but I think Indians should be wise not to lose wickets to him and play him out for 40 runs or so). Sehwag has done well against Malinga in general. There may also be a case for playing Pathan in this game as a batsman in place of Uthappa. Pathan is another player who has batted well against Murali and Malinga in the games in India. There would also be a case for playing Sreesanth in place of Agarkar who has looked a bit out of sorts in the first two games, although he ended with three wkts against Bermuda.