***Official*** Sri Lanka in India 2017

[Fuller Pilch]

Hopefully the new ball can blast out the tail

 

[Daemon]

If we're gifting Shanaka 5 wickets in a game, we're not even close to being ready for SA.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Does Kohli attack now? Does he try to keep the strike? Or does he push it around normally and trust the tail? Runs, overs and light are all factors

Bhuvi's a good batsman. Shouldn't refuse singles and turn away free runs.

If another wicket falls he definitely needs to shield them.

 

[OverratedSanity]

If we're gifting Shanaka 5 wickets in a game, we're not even close to being ready for SA.

Team composition will be pretty different. Hardik will come in (dunno why we've rested him though, that was a rubbish decision).

And I know this might sound ridiculous but we should consider Rohit if we go for the extra batsman. He looked like he'd genuinely turned the corner last year against NZ before the injury.

 

[harsh.ag]

This is riveting. Bhuvi's got a good head on his shoulders too, so need for Kohli to panic.

 

[OverratedSanity]

WAFG. This has been an awesome knock.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

I guess DRS is popular in India now

 

[vcs]

Need to get the lead past 200 somehow.

 

[harsh.ag]

Team composition will be pretty different. Hardik will come in (dunno why we've rested him though, that was a rubbish decision).

And I know this might sound ridiculous but we should consider Rohit if we go for the extra batsman. He looked like he'd genuinely turned the corner last year against NZ before the injury.

Yeah going with 5 batsmen in SA would be ill-advised. Not sure about Rohit, but it's not like Karun Nair's doing particularly well (although he did score a couple of centuries in domestic recently)

 

[Daemon]

Not as good, but still a bit reminiscent of how he saved us in the first Test against England in Rajkot

 

[harsh.ag]

Lakmal is so clever with that inswinging delivery. Uses it cleverly and sparsely.

 

[mr_mister]

Kohli back to test standard. Knew he'd come back after the aus series

 

[vcs]

He did make a ton on the SL tour and averaged 50+. No one noticed because Pujara, Dhawan and Rahane were piling it up by the bucketload.

 

[vcs]

 

[OverratedSanity]

He did make a ton on the SL tour and averaged 50+. No one noticed because Pujara, Dhawan and Rahane were piling it up by the bucketload.

Tbf it was the most downhill skiing ton imaginable.

On the other hand, his supposed "bad form" was basically 3 tests.

 

[morgieb]

He did make a ton on the SL tour and averaged 50+. No one noticed because Pujara, Dhawan and Rahane were piling it up by the bucketload.

I mean that ton was basically the definition of downhill skiing. And literally everyone else was scoring runs by the butload in that series.

 

[vcs]

True that.

Job far from done here, need to bat up to tea hopefully.

 

[Daemon]

Bhuvi's batting in LOs has been getting better and better, hopefully it translates to more test success.

 

[mr_mister]

Tbf it was the most downhill skiing ton imaginable.

On the other hand, his supposed "bad form" was basically 3 tests.

What a time to choke though. Against Aus at home

It had extra impact coz of that

 

[vcs]

On team composition, they really need to be flexible depending on how they read the conditions. Play Murali Vijay instead of Dhawan on a green mamba and drop Hardik for Iyer/Nair/Rohit or whoever is the next in line. Admittedly, stuff like this could also go badly wrong, if you drop a guy who did well in the last game based on gut feeling, and the replacement ****s up. But they can't rely on Ashwin/Jaddu for lower order runs in SA and Saha will probably struggle too. So they'll probably want to play 6 batsmen.