India won the series, very comfortably at the end, against Sri Lanka by 4-1 thanks to some consistent efforts by its players like Virat Kohli, Gautam Gambhir and Irfan Pathan.
Against the Lankans, if Gambhir doesnt get a big score, Kohli does. If Virat doesnt get going, Dhoni will surely come to the party. It was good to see the captain score in his earlier avatar of scoring runs very quickly with the help of some aggressive shots. Irfan Pathan has thrown his name into the selector's hat for possible options as an all-rounder. He holds the edge over the others like his brother Yusuf and Ravindra Jadeja because he bowls medium-pace (very effective outside the sub-continent). Thanks to Vinay Kumar's injury, Pathan walked into the squad but now he is the front-runner for the T20 World Cup.
Dinda is no replacement for Praveen Kumar but he tried gamely. I would be surprised if he is persisted still. Rohit Sharma cannot blame the selectors or the management for not giving him enough options - he was chosen for all the five games and the skipper managed to rejig his lineup to give chances to both Rohit and Tiwary. After the series, it looks like Tiwary had the advantage going forward thanks to his exploits with the ball as well. Again, he has an advantage over the others since he bowls leg-spin (most of the part-timers like Sehwag, Raina, Rohit bowl off-spin).
Zaheer Khan played all the five matches which was quite surprising - will he maintain this run later in the season as well? Rahul Sharma and Ojha got couple of chances but could not cement their place ahead of Ashwin. The latter has gone down a rung, especially the levels he had reached after the World Cup.
Overall, a good outing for the Indians to start the new season. Things will hopefully get better in the T20 World Cup as well as the test series against New Zealand.
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