India vs Sri Lanka Final Cricket Match Highlights - WI Tri-Series

This tri-series will fade farther and farther into the blackhole of forgotten ODI events when in fact it may just have laid some important building blocks

Click here to watch WI Tri Series 2013 Final Match: India vs Sri Lanka Full Video Highlights

Tri-series, or bilateral ODI series for that matter, aren't usually remembered for long after the final ball has been bowled. Given that the latest one was greedily squeezed in at the cost of a couple of Test series, and followed immediately after the Champions Trophy, there weren't exactly too many looking forward to it. And it is unlikely too many will be remembering it for anything other than MS Dhoni providing the latest example of his superhuman capabilities with the bat. Which is a pity, really, for this series gave us so much of what has become almost alien to the ODI format these days.

Click here to watch WI Tri Series 2013 Final Match: India vs Sri Lanka Full Video Highlights

There is something about the Caribbean that so often produces thrilling ODIs. You'll like them if your idea of thrill is five-set you-punch-I-counter-punch battles on the clay courts of Paris. In place of 350-plus chases, we got two proper modest-scoring ODI scraps, with West Indies and India winning by one-wicket margins as late as the 48th and the 50th overs. Instead of openers striding forward and murdering length deliveries, we had them fending for survival, taking blow after blow to their bodies. For the first time in a long while, here was a series which could be rightly be called a bowlers' one, one in which batsmen had to fight and earn their runs. Again, it was all down to the pitches, showing, by contrast, just how standardised limited-over cricket has been allowed to become over the years.

Instead of flat or "ideal one-day" pitches, Sabina Park and Queen's Park Oval produced surfaces which, although different, would have made for exciting Tests. Batting first was akin to handling the first session of a Test on a Sabina Park wicket spiced up by rain. It did ease up considerably during the chase, and while that made the toss important, you were still never in as a batsman even in the afternoon, as West Indies' collapse against India showed. Upul Tharanga and Mahela Jayawardene showed big scores were not impossible if superb batting came up against atrocious bowling, racking up a record 348 for 1 batting first against India.

Source: http://www.nowpublic.com/world/india-vs-sri-lanka-final-cricket-match-highlights-wi-tri-series

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