Leg-before, again

Five, six, seven... Sachin Tendulkar will be hoping the rest of the series doesn’t follow regular mathematical progression. On Tuesday, Tendulkar was dismissed leg-before early in his innings for the third time in succession, and once again, it was a decision that could well have gone in the batsman’s favour. In the first one-dayer in Dambulla, the ball had pitched a few inches outside leg-stump, while in the second, replays showed it would’ve gone on to miss leg. In the third, he looked plumb at first as he fell over trying to flick an overpitched Dilhara Fernando delivery, but Hawk Eye suggested the ball would have gone down the leg-side. Three different umpires — Kumara Dharmasena, Brian Jerling and Gamini Silva — have given the decisions and Tendulkar, apart from trying to skip the digit ‘8’ the next time he bats, will be hoping no new names are standing in the middle.

Malinga returns

The slinger is back in the Lankan team, a quirky coincidence coming so close on the heels of India recalling Laxmipathy Balaji from his own injury-induced break. Lasith Malinga marks his return to international cricket after the selectors named the tearaway fast bowler in the squad for the Twenty20 team against India on February 10. The hosts, however, decided to retain the same squad for the last two one-dayers.

More crowd trouble

Sri Lanka isn’t a venue that is associated with crowd trouble, but it does seem as if the spectators are getting fed up of their team’s no-show in the series so far. For the second match in succession, play was interrupted after an object was thrown at an Indian player.

While Ishant Sharma was the target in the second one-dayer, Praveen Kumar managed to escape as he dodged the missile. Fielding at long-on, he just picked it up and walked straight to the umpires as game was held up for five minutes.

Extra policemen were then deployed into the stand where the trouble came from, and India went on to complete that always seemed a formality.