The Asia Cup continues on Saturday when we head to Colombo for the first time as the co-hosts Sri Lanka go up against Bangladesh in the second match in the Super Four stage of the 50 over competition.
This will be the second time Bangladesh has played at this stage of the event and having lost the opening one they know there is no more wiggle room. Sri Lanka get their Super Four campaign underway here and probably need to win to keep their title hopes realistic.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka made it through to the Super Four stage courtesy of winning both of their group matches but had Afghanistan understood the equation in their second one it might have been very different. Nevertheless, they won the group with a bit in hand and have now won their last 12 ODIs and will move second on the all-time list of winning streaks if they are able to come out on top in this match. It will also give them a very strong foundation to reach the final from.
Sri Lanka have batted well in both matches but their bowling almost let them down in the clash with Afghanistan and they will be looking for that department to go a lot better in this match. The positive is that they have already restricted Bangladesh in this tournament and are in home conditions and will know how the wicket plays. Bangladesh are also under pressure here so if they can apply some scoreboard pressure it will help.
Bangladesh
They have ridden their luck a little but Bangladesh are still surviving in this competition, albeit it is now by the skin of their teeth. Their existence in the competition from a competitive point of view comes to a close if they don’t win here so they do at least have the clarity of mind of knowing what they have to do. That should at least bring about their best performance of the tournament so far and they’ll need that to be enough to come through.
The problem Bangladesh have had at times in this tournament has been their batting. In the two matches against the supposed better sides than they have registered just 164 and 193 and in this part of the world that isn’t getting the job done very often. They are going to need to find a way to put up a bigger total else they are going to be staring down the barrel of an exit. They weren’t disgraced with the ball in either of those run chases so if they can find some runs they could be competitive.
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Team News
There is nothing to suggest that Sri Lanka are about to change a winning team. They don’t really have a lot of options to change things anyway with the injuries they have but Kusal Perera could be one to come in if they do make a change.
There is no guarantee that Bangladesh change anything from a personnel point of view but I would be amazed if their batting order doesn’t differ from what we’ve seen. Mushfiqur batting at six gives him little chance to truly impact the game.
Betting
When these two met earlier in the tournament I took under 517.5 runs citing the Bangladesh batting being a concern and the total never got threatened with just 329 runs in that contest. That was in Pallekele and we are in Colombo now and the Premadasa Stadium is beginning to become a higher scoring ground but with the weather that is around this part of the world at the minute I’m not expecting conditions to be particularly easy when it comes to batting.
The line for this one has only dropped three runs but the Bangladesh batting hasn’t really improved and I think there is enough in this Sri Lanka bowling unit to expose it once again. Sri Lanka haven’t really impressed with the bat though. They chased down 164 against Bangladesh but were five down in doing so and were restricted to 291/8 batting first in good batting conditions against Afghanistan. This is a match where the bowlers might well hold sway so I’ll play the under here.
Tips
Back Under 514.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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