Dambulla: An embarrassed Indian Cricket Board have banned a planned comfort trip home for the side after the team’s Tuesday night’s humiliating 200 runs defeat by New Zealand at Rangiri Stadium.
The three-day trip was designed to break the six-day gap between the game against New Zealand’s side led by Ross Taylor and next Monday’s outing against Sri Lanka in the triangular series in the island cultural heartland. Continue reading below
Only minutes after Ashish Nehra was caught at mid-off by Jacob Oram with the score on 88, a BCCI official in Mumbai is said to have called the team’s manager and said the trip was cancelled. It is the one opportunity players were given to fly home for three days, only the board felt Team India were more in need of concentrating on the series at hand than flying home.
“This is part of the pre-World Cup planning and if this is how they are playing, it would make more sense for the side to remain in Sri Lanka and focus on the cricket than about flying home,” said a team source, as if reading a memo sent overnight from the board’s Mumbai offices.
As it is, the team was flown at BBCI expense from Colombo to Dambulla on Monday, using Sri Lanka helicopters, for which Dhoni thanked the board, but some of the players who were involved in Tuesday’s game against New Zealand, from all accounts, are not surprised by the cancellation of the three-day visit.
What did surprise many watching the India innings has been the total change in the Suresh Raina batting effort. So confident at P Sara Oval on the last afternoon of the third Test in sealing the win with a six, Raina didn’t seem to handle the quicker bowling from the New Zealanders. Daryl Tuffey’s ability to move the ball off the pitch the way he did caught the Indians, having become used to the flat Test surfaces prepared, by surprise.
