A series of ducks in Ruhuna

Well yesterday the first match of the Nokia Champions League T20 tournament kick started with Ruhuna not only playing Trinidad&Tobago but also having a taste of their first defeat. Needless to be said, Trinidad&Tobago won the match by 5 wickets at Hyderabad. The match was one more instance where the team winning the toss ended up as the losing side and Ruhuna was that unlucky team to have done that yet again. If not for some Dinesh Chandimal, no other player from Ruhuna could really stand up to the occasion. Chandimal scored 50 runs to be the lone half century scorer of the game.

It is confusing to see Jayasuriya still opening the innings when there are so many young legs available who can do the job rather than relying up on a 43 year old guy. Of course, Sanath Jayasuriya has been known to strike the ball hard but those days were over some 4 years back which can be confirmed with Sachin Tendulkar keeping him warming the benches in the IPL 2010. Moreover, Jayasuriya was not picked up by any franchisee for this year's IPL. It is no doubt that Jayasuriya had his ball doing the talking though his bat had to just shut up after scoring 13 runs.

Jayasuriya scalped the wicket of Darren Ganga and returned with an economy of 5.00 runs an over after bowling his quota of 4 overs which made him the most economical bowler of the lot. Anyways, coming to the match, one can see three of the batsmen from Ruhuna scoring or rather getting out after scoring a duck and one player was unbeaten on zero. Another interesting fact of the match would be that the Ruhuna team played their 20 overs losing all ten wickets. That might not be of that importance but the way Ruhuna tackled the opposition was too poor.

Ruhuna had T&T reeling at 6/2 at the end of the 3^rd over but once again left Dwayne Bravo and Darren Ganga to rule them. There have been many matches where a team loses quick wickets initially and end up victorious towards the end and this time T&T need not be considered to be the underdogs. However, the scorecard suggests that until the entry of Sherwin Ganga who scored a quickfire 39* runs from 15 balls that eventually sealed the match for both the teams-with Ruhuna being the losers while T&T emerging the winners. Had Chintaka Perera been given the ball instead of Janoda, something might have worked out for Ruhuna.