Did we take the home advantage when we played against India?

Bro. Nimal Gurusinghe

As we all know we lost to India One day series by 4-1. We could have easily won this series but we let the golden egg going begging. When we play in our country we have to prepare pitches to suit our players. We have to take maximum advantage of playing in our soil.

Opponents will not object with the pitches unless they are unfit to play. When we prepare a wicket we ought to go through the strong and weak points of our team, and similarly we must gauge the strengths and weaknesses of our opponents. If you analyze the Indian side, their batting line up is far superior to Sri Lanka batting line up. But their bowling side is not that standard. Definitely Sri Lanka has a better bowling attack than India. So if you prepare a good batting pitch it is for the Indian’s advantage. Therefore we shouldn’t have given them good batting wickets.

First ODI we played on a very good batting track, and Indians made use of the opportunity and scored 314 runs. Though Sri Lanka gave a good fight it was a difficult score to chase and lost the match by 21 runs. Second ODI was played on a very good bowling friendly pitch and Indians had no answer to our strong and accurate bowling attack. There batsmen were tamed by Sri Lanka bowlers, and we won the match very early. When it came to the 3rd ODI once again it was a batsmen friendly pitch. Though Sri Lanka scored 282 runs, India was able to chase this total because they had so many star batsmen. They reached the target in style.

Once again fourth ODI was played on a very good batting wicket. Sri Lanka won the toss and decided to bat first but could not make use of the opportunity and managed to score only 251 runs. The target was cake walk for the Indians, also our very poor fielding helped them to reach it very comfortably. It was an off day for our players. Ordinary schoolboys would have played better than our national players. Once in a way it happens to any team.

As a genuine cricket lover I understand it. But on the whole it was a very good batting wicket and Indians made use of it to the maximum. When it came to last and final ODI once again it was batsmen friendly track. India won the toss and correctly decided to bat and made hay while the sun was shining by putting up 294 runs on the board. However without Sangakkara and Mahela our players put up a gallant fight back. But at the end we lost by 20 runs. During the whole series we became a prey to strong Indian batting line up.

If our ground curators knew the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, they should have prepared the pitches to suit our team. All over the world countries prepare pitches for the home team’s advantage. If the host has won the series by 3-0 then preparing fifty fifty pitches for the remaining two matches, are OK. On the other hand if our national team cannot win in our own country can they win anywhere else?