Australia’s tour of Sri Lanka comes to an end on Friday with the second and last T20 between the two sides in Colombo. Australia put on a bit of a show in the opening T20 on Tuesday and will be looking to end the tour on a high. Sri Lanka will be looking to level that out with a win of their own to restore some pride.
Sri Lanka
The legendary set of Sri Lankan players is about to come to an end with the last one of the Sangakkara, Jayawardena and Dilshan trifecta about to retire. This will be the final match of Tillakaratne Dilshan’s career and Sri Lanka are sure to want to send him off with a final win.
Sri Lanka’s bowling was taken apart in the first T20 and that was in conditions that in theory should have favoured the bowlers so that has to be a real concern. Even then they offered little with the bat so the home side certainly have a few issues to overcome here.
Australia
It was a masterstroke to replace the injured Aaron Finch with Glenn Maxwell and the Big Show certainly didn’t disappoint. His century was brutal and brilliant at the same time and he will be out to deliver another special show in this match.
Hidden in that blitz was some good performances from the other batsmen and the bowling unit but rightly all the plaudits went to Maxwell for a majestic innings. On what is expected to be a good batting deck all eyes will be on the former Hampshire and Yorkshire man to see what he can do here.
Team News
Quite simply Sri Lanka have to change their bowling attack. You can’t get pummelled like they did in the previous match and not change anything. Expect Dasun Shanaka and Milinda Siriwardana to come into the side. Take your pick over who could miss out.
Australia will need to find a replacement for George Bailey as he has flown home. It is likely that Matthew Wade will play as a batsman only with Peter Nevill keeping the gloves.
Betting
After the beating they just took it is hard to see Sri Lanka coming back to win this one but we saw in the England vs Pakistan match earlier in the week that nothing is predictable with any confidence in this format of the game so once again I’m going to leave the match betting alone and focus on the side markets.
The bet in question is the first six overs for Australia where the line looks very low at 44.5. That is only 7.5 an over and with Maxwell, Warner and then most likely Khawaja in the top three there is so much firepower up top for Australia and we’ve seen them attack in every powerplay so far be it the T20 or the ODIs.
Even if conditions are a little sluggish, and they weren’t that bad in the ODI here, 7.5 an over in the modern day is nothing so I’ve got to take the overs on what looks far too low a line.
Tips
WON – Back Australia First 6 Overs – Over 44.5 runs for a 5/10 stake at 1.95 with Coral
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