Sri Lanka and England do battle in the first of five ODIs on Wednesday when they get the series underway in Dambulla. The home side have their backs against the wall heading into the series but have nothing to lose while England are overwhelming favourites and will want to back that up.
Both sides will be looking for the first win of the series for different reasons. Sri Lanka need it to stop the rot that has set in while England will want it for their own peace of mind as they can sometimes be vulnerable in Asian conditions.
Sri Lanka
The task for Sri Lanka here will be to put their disastrous Asia Cup run behind them and offer something for the future. That won’t be easy though because the fallout from that tournament was pretty severe but in truth their performances were that bad it probably needed to be. There is less than eight months until the World Cup and if Sri Lanka are to build something for that it has to begin now.
A number of the senior players have been canned which will put a lot of pressure on the ones that remain. It will also mean the younger players need to come into the side and hit the ground running. You get the feeling this first match will determine the remainder of the series for Sri Lanka so they need to go big here.
England
We saw in the summer how destructive this England side can be but they have been known to be less powerful in the sub-continent so they have five matches here to show everyone what they can do. Much like Sri Lanka, you get the feeling this is a big first match for the tourists too. If their batting can fire and set the tone they should dominate the series. If it doesn’t and doubt sets in this could be more of a struggle than it needs to be.
The other issue England will have is to bowl well, their seamers in particular. That is generally their weakness although we saw in those summer series that they are a whole lot better in that department than they used to be. England need to get used to being favourites in these series heading into the World Cup so they can lay a marker down here.
Team News
Niroshan Dickwella and Dinesh Chandimal are back with the latter skippering the side. Lasith Malinga remains in the team with Dushmantha Chameera expected to take the new ball with him. Dasun Shanaka should be the all-rounder.
England are expected to give a debut to Olly Stone in place of Liam Plunkett who is off getting married. Jason Roy looks set to partner Jonny Bairstow at the top of the order with Joe Root back in at three.
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Betting
Given that one of the two warm up matches England have had scheduled was washed out betting on this opening match with any assurance is not easy so I am going to go into it with just the one bet, which centres around the run line for Jonny Bairstow.
The line is at 32.5 which I believe is a little on the high side. England might have dominated the one warm up match they did play ahead of this series but Bairstow could only make three with the bat and I don’t expect him to be brilliant in this series I must admit. He has traditionally been a terrible player of spin and he is certainly going to be tested in that department in this series. I would imagine these pitches will do a little bit with the new ball with the humidity that is around so opening the batting for someone not comfortable against spin will mean he needs to attack early on. That brings risk which isn’t ideal. I’ll take the under on this run line.
Tips
WON – Back J.Bairstow – Under 32.5 runs for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Coral
Back him here:
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