Yuvraj's fireworks guide India to victory

Colombo: Yuvraj Singh brought along his own brand of fireworks to celebrate India's Independence Day, the result being a highly entertaining and adventurous century.

Not that it was too cavalier to ignore the niceties of good footwork as well as the use of hand-eye coordination that flattened the Sri Lanka XI bowlers as the Indians scored a facile win by 92 runs on Friday.

To say that the locals were outplayed is a mild comparison to what happened at the same P Sara Oval venue five days ago when India lost the third Test (and the series) by eight wickets.

Maybe inspired by the flag raising ceremony at the Tamil Union Cricket and Athletic Club ground performed by the team's captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj smashed the ball around with style the sort of confidence that raises some hope for India's chances in the looming ODI series.

This was not about a batsman searching for form and putting together a few pretty strokes to please the purists. It was about someone who went out and dominated the innings in the fashion of someone determined, as he late admitted, to find early form.

Of course there is more to the Indians effort than the classy Yuvraj fireworks as the selectors rested Virender Sehwag but brought in Virat Kholi to give him a run while Gautam Gambhir stepped up his momentum to keep the innings afloat at the early stage.

India ODI squad's vice-captain has not only backed himself in support of his captain MS Dhoni's pre-limited overs series comments that they need to tackle Ajantha Mendis in their own way, his high-powered innings of 172 off 121 balls against the Sri Lanka XI had the Indians galloping to 342-5 in 50 overs at 6.9 runs an over.

Although dropped three times off high top-edged strokes, he plundered the bowling with a swashbuckling effort against a near full Sri Lanka Test bowling and ODI line up. Most of this Sri Lanka XI side are in the A team that is selected to head for South Africa next week.

Yuvraj lashed 13 sixes and eight fours before he eventually lost his wicket to Test left-arm seamer Chanaka Welegeadra who has recovered from a lengthy injury.

While the highlight of the innings will no doubt be the 11 sixes that he hit, there were other interesting aspects, not least a 99-run partnership with MS Dhoni off only 40 balls as the tall, elegant batsman dropped from the Test squad attacked the bowling without too many concerns.

In this it is a good practice session and the middle net will be useful for a man who is still battling to earn a place in the Test side. He picked off the runs with 90 of his runs bang scored in boundaries; he also found time to get in some legwork by running a number of sharp singles and twos.

"It has to be realised that while this is good practice the bowling we will face in the ODI games will be of a higher standard," he said, which is pretty dismissive of a bowling attack with at least four bowlers with Test and ODI experience.

"I am happy with my form and I have to admit that I have put in a lot of hard preparation for this tour and the series," he added. "We know how important it is and have all worked towards winning it.

"We also know that there is a lot of work ahead of us as playing Sri Lanka at home is not all that easy... We all know that," he explained.

With one batsman so dominant, however, the others looked to be part players in a giant stage play, but let's face it, it is all about Yuvraj and the need to build team confidence at the right time.

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