India’s walkover series in Sri lanka is boring to watch. It’s boring cricket
India is the best team in the world cricket right now, and with a core of 30 players to choose from, we are well positioned for the next few years. Yet, the current series the Indian team is playing in Sri lanka, has been drudgery to watch. Not for lack of success for the Indian team, indeed, a test-series whitewash and a potential whitewash in the ongoing one-day series is also on the cards with all our leading batsmen and bowlers doing well, this will go down in India’s cricket annals as our most successful foreign tour yet. But the lack of competitiveness by the Sri lankan team which has been ridiculed in that nation’s media and has also angered fans has been depressing. There is nothing wrong in celebrating India’s success in this series but there is this overwhelming feeling of the series being a contest between lions and lambs. Without their old guard comprising Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara and with a past-his-prime lasith Malinga, this is not the Sri lankan team of a decade ago. The island nation faces an uphill challenge in rebuilding its team for the future, and they surely will, but series like these will not really help them. India sensibly sent their ace spinner Ravichandran Ashwin and batting star Cheteshwar Pujara to play in the England county championships ahead of India’s tour to England next summer, but it seems that India could have spared a few more players to go to England to get some practice as our last series in England was an unmitigated disaster in the tests. Thankfully, India has used the series in Sri lanka to blood some new emerging talent.
Meanwhile, in England, remarkable batting success of the West Indies in chasing down a formidable total at Headingley through the talents of a young team warms the cockles of every cricket fan. While this West Indian team is nowhere near the legends of the past, in the batting of Barbadian Shai Hope, he clearly channeled the batting spirit of that small island which produced cricket’s most iconic opening partnership of Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes. Also, in Mirpur, Bangladesh pulled off a stunning victory against Australia, thanks to the superb all-round abilities of Shakib al-Hasan winning their first test against the antipodeans. So, clearly, despite the horrifically tragic series on our island neighbour, cricket is alive and kicking. What fans want is a competitive series, walkovers are not fun to watch and they are not fun for the players either unless they have records on their minds. In that respect, Indian players are not doing too badly indeed. But with such an uncompetitive series, sadly none is watching these records being set.