Mahela Jayawardene believes India hold the edge due to their pace bowling
Mahela Jayawardene has claimed that India and Bangladesh's batting is evenly matched, but the former hold the edge due to their superior pace bowling attack. In the wake of the Sri Lanka-Bangladesh controversy, he also added that players should take the responsibility of their behavior on the field.
After a tiring tour of South Africa, India sent an inexperienced squad for the Nidahas Trophy as they decided to rest important players like Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni and others from the team. On the other hand, Bangladesh came with their full squad and were also boosted with the comeback of Shakib al Hasan for the last two games of the tournament. The return of the Bangladesh skipper made the team's batting stronger, but their lack of stars in the bowling department will be an important concern ahead of the final against India. Jayawardene believes the same as well.
“Bangladesh have nothing to lose and everything to gain against India. They can enjoy being the underdogs after two round-robin stage defeats and attack India without the pressure of expectation. India may be missing some of their top senior players, but they have already shown that they have great depth of talent right now in all departments,” Jayawardene wrote for TOI.
“They have a clear advantage in terms of their pace bowling against Bangladesh, but in terms of batting things are more evenly balanced. Bangladesh have the experience in their top order to do some damage. At the end of the day, as is so often the case with T20 cricket, it will probably come down to who handles the pressure the best and is able to best navigate themselves through the key moments in the game.”
The last league match of the tournament was marred by controversies as Bangladesh protested against an umpiring decision and Shakib decided to call the players back in the last over of the match. Even though the contest continued, the end of the match saw players from both the teams engaged in heated verbal discussions and Jayawardene stated that such situations are not good in any level of cricket.
“The final-over fracas should certainly have been handled better. From a neutral perspective, it was definitely a no-ball and the umpires made a mistake. They then made matters worse by not taking charge of the situation and diffusing the tension with effective communication. Having said that, the reactions of the players, including the threats by Bangladesh to leave the field of play, are not the kind of thing you want young cricket fans to see. Emotions were understandably running high, but players have a larger responsibility to the game.
"The elimination of hosts Sri Lanka from this Nidahas Trophy has obviously caused a lot of local disappointment. However, sadly, the truth is that Sri Lanka don’t deserve to be in the final after three straight defeats. India have been extremely impressive after their wobbly start and Bangladesh have battled really hard and shown their experience at critical times,” wrote Jayawardene.
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