Arjuna Ranatunga has blamed 20-20 cricket for India's huge defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka in the 1st test of the ongoing series.

Which 20-20 cricket he's talking about, he doesn't say.

Either its the IPL or its the T20 internationals.

If he's talking about the latter, then his claim makes no sense.

Firstly because the number of T20Is on each tour is restricted by the ICC so definitely there isn't any overdose.

And secondly, India's big 4 - Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, and Ganguly - do not play T20Is.

So its the IPL he's talking about I guess.

But then even that makes no sense.

Apart from Sehwag and Gambhir, who were the IPL's best opening pair, none of the other batsmen of the test XI played a major role in the 20-20 league.

Not only that but none of those players is even considered a 20-20 player.

Sachin Tendulkar sat out more than half the IPL due to injury and in the matches he played, he played one good knock of 50+ if my memory serves right. So he's definitely not suffering from a 20-20 hangover.

VVS Laxman also missed out more than half of the IPL matches due to injury. Even though he played several cameos in a few matches, Laxman was mostly found wanting in the 20-20 game. So no hangover there either.

Rahul Dravid played all the matches in the IPL and by the end of it seemed to have gotten the hang of the game. However, its no secret that Dravid didn't enjoy it and that he would rather be playing test cricket any day. Even though he adapted well to the IPL, that in no way could have affected his natural instinct of being a test player. No 20-20 hangover here either.

Saurav Ganguly had a fairly successful IPL with some good knocks and is probably more suited to the 20-20 game than the above 3. But then Ganguly has been a natural ODI and 20-20 player throughout his career who has always adapted to test cricket. During the last 2 years, his test performance has been brilliant and since his comeback he has been one of India's mainstays in the middle order. He's always adapted well so no 20-20 hangover here either.

Coming back to Sehwag and Gambhir. Following the IPL, the 2 openers translated their 20-20 form in ODIs, and there's no reason why they can't do it at the test level.

Sehwag has always played the way he did in the Colombo test, which according to Ranatunga is like 20-20 cricket. Well, in the past Sehwag' 20-20 approach got him 2 triples in test cricket and a number of 150+ scores. He can fail once in a while.

As for Gambhir, he looked better than most of India's batsmen in this test and yet he was the best Indian batsman of the IPL. Gambhir is making a comeback to the test side and with his talent he will definitely do better going forward.

So why excactly is 20-20 cricket being blamed?

Ranatunga can probably answer that better because I certainly don't see it.

My message to Ranatunga as well as all my fellow Indian bloggers is that there really is no reason to be pointing fingers at the failure of the Indian batsmen in the Colombo test.

They were up against quality spin bowling to which they had no answers to. Even King Sanga thinks so!

Maybe its time that the focus is shifted from blaming 20-20 cricket and the failure of India's powerful batting line up to Praising the Magic of the Spinning M&Ms.

I have raved about him before and I am going to do it again.

Mendis was the star at Colombo.

Sure it was Muralitharan who picked up 11-110 and handed India their 3rd largest defeat ever, but would Murali have been able to do it without Mendis?

No, probably not.

This was Murali's 16th test match against India and his match figures of 11-110 is his best effort against them.

Murali has taken 10 wickets in a match against India only once before this and that was at the same ground 7 years ago.

India faced a similar defeat back then as Murali picked up 8-87 and 3-109.

The difference between then and now is that in 2001 Murali bowled as many as 81 overs and there was no Sachin, no Sehwag, no Laxman, no Gambhir in that match.

In the match that just ended, Murali bowled only 42 overs, half of what he had bowled in 2001 for the same number of wickets.

Futhermore, Murali has 21 hauls of 10 wickets in a match, yet only thrice has he picked those wickets up in lesser overs than the 42 he bowled in this match.

Those 3 times were against West Indies (25.3), England (37.2), and Bangladesh (35.5) - neither of whom is an India when it comes to playing spin.

My point?

It was Mendis who created the pressure and it was Murali who benefited the most.

With a Mendis sharing the burden at the other end, Murali was a more potent force.

Mendis had match figures of 8-132, which is remarkable for a spinner making his debut against India - Ask Shane Warne!

Mendis had ripped apart India in the Asia Cup final but at that time we all thought that Yuvraj, Sharma, Raina, and the rest of the Indian brat back weren't the players of spin that Sachin, Dravid, Ganguly, and Laxman were.

Before this series began there was a lot of hype surrounding Mendis and how he would fare against India in test matches.

Dhoni gave statements that the Indian batsmen would have figured Mendis out before the test series began.

Dravid was right when he said that it was wrong to only focus on Mendis as Murali and Vaas presented a far greater threat but then he probably didn't focus at all as he fell to him in both innings.

What a first test wicket as well - that of Rahul Dravid.

Mendis had the Indian batsmen, 'the best players of spin in the world', in all sorts of trouble in both innings.

The pressure, which used to be applied only from Murali's end, was now there from both ends.

Thus, even though it was Murali ripping through India, it was Mendis who was helping Murali do that.

Mendis had a brilliant debut and that too against one of the top sides. The lesser opposition might already be getting weak in the knees.

It was quite a happening weekend in Dubai where I was attending a conference, meeting up and socializing with some old friends, and doing everything unrelated to cricket.

But for some reason, cricket refuses to leave me.

Inzamam Ul Haq happened to be staying at the same hotel where my conference was. He was there with family in tow. Probably enjoying the summer heat of Dubai.

Its definitely the worst time of the year to come to this part of the world so I'm not sure what Inzi was doing here.

I heard Younis Khan is in Saudi Arabia for an Umrah (the religious pilgrimage) - maybe Inzi stopped by on his way there.

In striking contrasting styles, another cricketer, namely Yuvraj Singh, chatted up Well Pitched blogger O2's wife at the Mall of the Emirates when a polite request for an autograph was met with demands for taking him partying around Dubai's night spots.

All this while his team mates Sachin, Karthik, and Gambhir piled 50s against a Sri Lankan Board XI.

Speaking of Karthik, I wonder why fellow blogger Ottayan keeps calling him "Kaarthick" - someting to do with numerology Ott?

Later at night I sent an SMS to O2 asking if he was partying with Yuvraj and I got an instant reply that read:

"Hahaha. No Scene. Sleazy B£$&%^*!"

Well thats Yuvi for you I guess.

Kapil Dev today had his thoughts on him too when he said "He must exhibit his talent at a proper place rather than elsewhere".

India's test series against Sri Lanka seems to be building up well with the hype around Mendis along with the return of Sachin and him aproaching Brian Lara's record for most rest runs.

I just hope the matches aren't high scoring boring draws.

My blogging frequency dipped during last week as I got busy planning my month long sabbatical in August, which was quite a tough task.

Its almost done now. I will be away for all of August but I'm sure Obaid, Sledge, Nazhar, and O2 will be able to keep you entertained.

I'll be back in time for the Champions Trophy, the location of which we still don't know.

What I also don't know is how I will keep track of the cricket blogosphere while I'm away.

I disappear for a weekend and I find that J Rod has posted more than what other blogs do in a weeks time. This is a month I'm talking about.

Oh well, I'll find out soon enough.

There won't be much cricket to miss though or will there?

Sachin getting to 12,000 test runs, Mendis breaking the record for most wickets in a 3-test series, South Africa winning their first series in England since their readmission, Asif winning his doping case, another doping scandal for Pakistan cricket as yesterday's test results come out may be just some of the stories that would be written on while I'm away.

I'm here for another week though but still doing quite a bit of planning.

We all know that Dhoni is not touring Sri Lanka with the Indian squad.

We all know that Dhoni wanted to rest his aching bones from playing cricket day-in day-out.

But do we know what happened when Dhoni got to Ranchi, his hometown, to find some rest.

Noone let him have that rest.

He was mobbed by fans who gathered around his house wanting a glimpse of India's biggest cricket sensation since Sachin Tendulkar.

Not surprisingly, majority of these fans were female.

Thus, in order to save himself from all these mobsters, Dhoni got himself some security guards.

Whats unique though is that Dhoni has got FEMALE security guards!

Thats True!

We are proud to present, for the first time in India, Dhoni's Angels!!!

The author says "His good looks and powerful performance on the field have earned him many fans, including a lot of young women ....".

I wonder if Salman Ravi has the desire to meet Dhoni one day.

And why female guards, you may ask.

Well, that is so because according to the senior police offcier "we decided to deploy women commandos for his security as they can do the job with ease".

Uhh, what job sir?

Oh keeping the female fans away! You had me thinking there for a moment.

And Commandos? My my!

The story also mentions Dhoni being hugged by a fan who ran onto the playing field at the Eden Gardens in Calcutta.

The author says that some of Dhoni's friends claim that "Dhoni is yet to get over the embarrassment" - regarding the Calcutta incident.

Why is he embarassed? He must have loved it. Any guy would!

To that another police official says "The next three weeks that he is here we will ensure that he does not have to face any kind of embarrassment like the one in Calcutta".

Again, Calcutta was not an embarassment. That was probably the most exciting single moment of Dhoni's career!

However, even if we think of it as an embarassing situation for a moment, Dhoni might be in for some different kind of embarassing situations now, contradictory to what the police official has said.

This is what one of the female guards at Dhoni's door step had to say:

"I watched him play on television and never thought I would see him from such close quarters" she giggles.

She giggles!?

Well hello. We have some more fans here!

So whose going to save Dhoni from these fans then?

And there isn't one of them. There are as many as 15.

15 females guarding Dhoni's home!

Oh no wait. 15 female commandos guarding Dhoni's home!

Now which guy wouldn't want that?

That too when one of them says "It is good to be deployed for his security".

Now we all know why Dhoni opted out of the Sri Lanka tour.