India in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka completed the formalities in just over an hour on day 5. They dismissed India for 299 to win the match by an innings and 77 runs and the series 2-1.
This was the home team's second series win over the Indians after 16 long years. Though there was a slight resistance at the end of the innings from Harbhajan Singh (17) and Zaheer Khan (45), they just delayed the inevitable. Statistical highlights of the fifth day

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The President of Sri Lanka, Ms Chandrika Kumaratunga, sent a congratulatory message to the Sri Lankan skipper Sanath Jayasuriya on winning their first series against India after 16 years.
She also commended the efforts put in by the coach Dave Whatmore in making the Sri Lankan team a successful force in world cricket.

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Sourav Ganguly blamed inconsistency and failure by the youngsters to grab their opportunities as the main reason for their lack of success on the Sri Lanka tour.
He refused to dwell much on the fact that some of his key players were injured. He added that the batsmen got starts but failed to go on to make the big scores required that was needed for a Test win.
Ganguly said that Sri Lanka had simply out batted India in two of the games.

Asian Test Championship

Sri Lanka's representative in the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) technical committee has reportedly not agreed to the appointment of an Indian umpire for the second Asian Test Championship match between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to be played at Colombo from September 6-10.
Former pace bowler Ashanta De Mel, reportedly had to remind the Pakistani authorities in Multan that the umpires had not been appointed for the second match and rejected the suggestion of appointing an Indian umpire since India were not participating in the tournament.
Meanwhile it was decided that Pakistan's Riazuddin will supervise the Colombo match along with Rudi Kuertzen of South Africa.

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The Multan Test match was reportedly disorganized with the PCB failing to even provide the balls until the morning of the match. Moreover none of senior officials of the ACC were present during the prize distribution ceremony.

Miscellaneous

The Indian cricket team's departure for South Africa has been advanced by four days in order to relocate the short preparatory camp from a city in India to Johannesburg.
The early departure will give India ten days to prepare before the first match of the tri-series against South Africa in Johannesburg on October 5.

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The Mumbai High Court will be hearing for the second time the appeal filed yet again by Gayathri Arts, a Mumbai based company that claimed the BCCI had wrongly awarded sponsorship rights of the Indian team to IMG-TWI. Gayatri Arts claim they had made the highest bid and yet were denied the deal.

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The executive secretary of the BCCI Sharad Diwadkar will be submitting his report on the Goa Cricket Association (GCA) ticket fiasco that led to mismanagement of the fifth one-day international staged at Goa in April this year against Australia. Diwadkar met the former President and office bearers of the GCA, who were involved in the scam and is likely to submit his reports soon.

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A match between the Mumbai XI and the visiting New Zealand A in the Moin-ud-Dowlah cricket tournament had to be abandoned at the Lal Bahadur Stadium, Fateh Maidan at Hyderabad when a tap of the `spread water' pipeline at the ground burst due to high pressure and created a huge puddle just to the right of the square-leg, which led to the abandonment of the match.
At that stage the Kiwis, chasing a victory target of 251 in 50 overs, were 128 for three in 24 overs. Incidentally the venue was under serious debate for its acceptability as an international centre after ICC match referee Ranjan Madagulle's adverse report on the ground conditions to host any international matches after the last one between India and New Zealand in 1999.
Recently the BCCI had cleared the venue, and would be hosting one of the one-day internationals between India and England in January 2002.

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Southpaw Justin Langer who made a comeback to the Australian team with a fighting century in the final Ashes Test at the Oval said he was focusing on retaining the openers slot for Australia's next series against New Zealand. An out of form Langer was made to open the innings in the final Test following the regular opener Michael Slater's problems on and off the field that resulted in the latter's omisson.

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India's crushing defeat to Sri Lanka in the final Test of the series at Colombo has resulted in them being pushed down to 8th place in the ICC Test Championship points table. India were earlier in the seventh spot that has now been taken by Pakistan following their convincing win in the Asian Test Championship match against Bangladesh at Multan.

SCORES AT A GLANCE

India v Sri Lanka (3rd Test)
at Colombo (5th day)
Toss: India
India: 234 (SS Das 59, S Ramesh 46, R Dravid 36, H Badani 38; Muralitharan 8-87) 299 (SS Das 68, S Ramesh 55, Z Khan 45; M Muralitharan 3-109)
Sri Lanka: 610-6 (M Atapattu 108, K Sangakkara 47, M Jayawardene 139, H Tillekeratne 136 not out, T Samaraweera 103 not out; V Prasad 3-101)

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