The T20 series between Sri Lanka and West Indies comes to a close in Dambulla on Thursday when the third and final match will take place and we now know that we have a deciding match to determine the overall winner.
West Indies won the opening match of the series before Sri Lanka emphatically levelled things up in the second game and now we have one more T20 to decide who claims a relatively meaningless series albeit one which has been entertaining.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka were caught out with the new ball in the opening match having largely played well throughout the contest. They tried their hardest to pull things back but they weren’t quite able to reel West Indies back in which immediately put them under pressure to deliver in the second game. There were Sri Lanka teams in the not too distant past who would have succumbed to the pressure but to their credit they didn’t and put in an equally as good performance, one which they had complete control of.
Sri Lanka didn’t score as many as they did in the opening game but on a used pitch there was never going to be a need to do that. The score they put up looked like a winning one and after a change of personnel with the ball and the approach with it they were able to get stuck into the West Indies batting order early and once they took wickets in the powerplay and got the scoring rate up to unmanageable levels they were able to run out very comfortable winners.
West Indies
When they won the first game probably more comfortably than the end score suggested that they did, West Indies would have been confident of claiming the series. They still have that chance but they have already made a mess of the first opportunity and will need to regroup quickly if they are to get themselves over the line. The problem would be that the fears that were there heading into the series came to the fore in a big way in that second game.
They didn’t bowl badly but allowed Sri Lanka to get away from them a touch in the middle overs and a couple of key deliveries towards the end of the bowling effort but it was with the bat where their weaknesses were exposed. It probably wasn’t a great idea to drop Shai Hope who is the one man who can nudge and nurdle his way to a score and without him they were soon in trouble to the Sri Lanka spinners and were never able to get out of the strong grasp they had on them.
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Team News
After making a switch to their bowling unit for the second game and winning so convincingly you would imagine that Sri Lanka will go into this deciding match with the same XI which got them back into the series in the last game.
I don’t know whether West Indies read the pitch wrong in the second game but they are going to need to include another spinner if they are going to win the series. Fabian Allen would be the obvious pick with Shamar Joseph or Shamar Springer would be most likely to make way.
Betting
I think this series is theirs to lose for Sri Lanka now. Had they not got their bowling combinations all wrong to begin the opening game there is a good case to be made that they would already have had the series won. They haven’t but I always had them down as coming on as the stronger side the longer the series went on given that all three matches were on the same ground within four days of each other. That means the wickets are going to turn more and more and we saw that between game one and two.
Sri Lanka were emphatic winners last time out and the fact that they can now genuinely bowl upwards of 16 overs of spin if they want to makes me think they will win this and win it well. West Indies aren’t great at playing spin, as we saw in that second match and it would be a huge surprise if the pitch doesn’t turn even more here. Nine wickets fell to spin in the previous game for West Indies with the spinners delivering figures of 13.1-0-60-9. Anything close to that here and Sri Lanka don’t just win, they win by a comfortable margin once again.
Tips
Back Sri Lanka (-4.5wickets/9.5runs) to beat West Indies for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365
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