Mirpur: Jolted out of their comfort zone after Tuesday's defeat to Sri Lanka, India will hope to be back to their winning ways when they take on Bangladesh in their second outing of the tri-series on Thursday. The Indians came high on confidence after their Test and ODI series wins over Sri Lanka but their five-wicket loss against the islanders, who were without some key players, has not only dented their pride but also shattered their hopes of becoming the top ranked one-day team for the time being.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men will now have to go back to the drawing board and sort out their batting and bowling woes, besides praying that they don't end up on the receiving end of the dew factor. The loss meant that India do not have any chance of becoming world number one in ICC ODI rankings at least till the end of the tri-series as they needed to win all their matches here to achieve the feat. Dhoni blamed dew for their loss but his side was second best in all departments of the game against Sri Lanka. The batsmen though will have to take the blame for frittering away the chance to score 300.
In their famed line-up, only Yuvraj Singh came up with a big score which was just not enough to put any pressure on the Sri Lankans. As Dhoni himself said after the match, the only way to win after being put into bat first is to put up a big score so that it offsets the advantage the other side will get by winning the toss. India at one time looked set for a 300-plus score after they were 259 for five but they could add just 20 runs in the last five overs which proved costly for them at the end. "It is very tough for the bowlers especially for the spinners to grip the ball when dew sets in. The only way a team bowling second could win a match in such a scenario is to score a big total and then get early wickets. We were unlucky not to get some early wickets," Dhoni said.
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