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Great start, still better finish
There has been hardly any time to celebrate or talk about Sri Lanka's Asia Cup victory. The South Africans are in the country and playing a test match already. After two day since the Asia Cup was concluded the home team have had to shed the blue outfit for the white one and mentally adjust from playing one day cricket, to play in five tests.

The Asia Cup victory should not be stored away in the memory bow so soon. It must go down as another famous win. Marvan Atapattu's men got off to a great start in the series, maintained the form and wrapped it all up with a convincing win in the final.

Marvan Atapattu walked away with the man-of-the-match award in the final and he richly deserved it. Since being given the mantle of test and one day captain of the national team Atapattu has grown in stature. He has grown in confidence and the approach is more bolder and positive.

On that day he batted when the pitch was at its best to bat. The track was different from the earlier game. The batsmen had to work much harder to collect runs. Not ideal for one day cricket, but it served the purpose for Sri Lanka.

Possessing a sound technique is the key to succeeding consistently as a batsman. Particularly during periods when form is lost temporarily, the technically sound always get out of the rut quicker.

This is certainly the case with Marvan Atapattu. He has kept coming back, answering all critics, from the time he started his career on a disastrous note. He has never gone long without runs coming from his bat.

After laying the foundation to reach a total of around 275 runs the Sri Lankans suddenly slips back a couple of gears. After witnessing a couple of overs from Harbajan Singh it was evident that getting the spinners away was going to be a difficult task. To score at four an over or more was going to be impossible and 250 runs seemed like a winning score.

Then Virendra Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar came into the attack and they were able to extract plenty of turn off the surface., some deliveries even being unplayable. What a talented cricketer Tendulkar is. He and the team had planned that he bowls leg break to the right hand batsman, pitch it outside the leg stump, onto or around the bowlers footmarks and he executed the plan precisely. Even Shane Warne would have been proud of his leg spinning that day.

India were unable to maintain the required momentum. Sri Lanka bowled accurately and fielded brilliantly. They sensed that should they be able to push India beyond as asking rate of five runs an over, the task was going to be uphill.

The two catches by Jayawardena and Dilshan to dismiss Gangully and Dravid were out of this world. They gave the team a tremendous boost. Tendulkar tried, but on the day it was not good enough. He was slower in accumulating runs than usual, but he could not be blamed as wickets fell at regular intervals. First Sehwag, then Gangully, Luxman, Dravid and Yuvraj Singh all departed without contributing too much. This made Tendulkar have to protect his wicket rather than play his natural game.

The end result was that Sri Lanka grabbed all the honours. The Indians were outplayed in all departments of the game. Well done Sri Lanka, continue the good work against South Africa.

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