The Asia Cup got off to an explosive start on Wednesday when India gave the hosts Bangladesh a good beating and on Thursday it will be the turn of the current world champions in the 20 over format to enter the stage.
That sees Sri Lanka taking on the qualifiers for the tournament in UAE in the first match of the tournament for both sides. Sri Lanka will be expecting to win this match and win it by something of a landslide but UAE are warmed up after three matches to make it this far and they will hope that can be significant.
This will be Sri Lanka’s first outing since they lost their three match series in India recently. They put up a solid effort with an understrength side in that series but they are much stronger going into this tournament which they will hope equates to success.
UAE played three matches in the qualifying tournament and they won them all and now they will get four invaluable matches as preparation against top draw opposition to take into the qualifying leg of the World T20 with them but they will want to showcase their talents now they’ve made it this far.
The big news for Sri Lanka is that Lasith Malinga is back to skipper the side in this tournament. Angelo Mathews, Nuwan Kulasekara and Rangana Herath also return to the squad and all could well feature in this match too.
UAE are expected to go in with a similar side to the one they fielded in their last win against Oman on Monday. That match gave them a feel for conditions here and in the likes of Mohammad Shahzad, Rohan Mustafa and Mohammad Naveed they have a few underrated players even at this level.
The entire event is played on the same ground throughout. We saw on Wednesday that the wicket was a little green and had plenty of pace and bounce but I’m expecting that to change as the tournament goes on and the wickets should get slower and much lower with the spinners coming into play more.
Sri Lanka are massive favourites for this match as you would expect but at 1/6 they offer little in the way of value and with no handicap currently priced up we have to head to the side markets for a bet in the game.
I’m going to take a chance on the highest score being a low one in this match. Were the UAE to bat first you would think this Sri Lanka attack would be all over them enough to restrict them to a low total which means only really the Sri Lanka openers would have a shot at a big score.
We can’t rule out Dilshan or someone going big but I wouldn’t say anyone is a certainty to do it especially in the first match of the tournament and particularly when Sri Lanka won’t care for entertaining here, they will be all about the winning.
UAE have a couple of bowlers who can threaten and pick up wickets at the right time so it is by no means a certainty that a Sri Lankan goes big even if they bat first so I’ll chance the under there at a tidy price.
I’ll also have a dabble on the man of the match market. I can’t see a Sri Lanka batsman getting this unless they do something incredibly special so I’ll go for one of their bowlers who are more likely to produce the more eye catching numbers.
Of course all eyes will be on Lasith Malinga but he might need a game or so to get up to speed and if he saves himself for the death and the match doesn’t get that far then that won’t help his chances much.
Often when the associate teams do battle with the established ones it is raw pace which does for them so with that in mind I’m going to take a chance on Dushmantha Chameera to deliver the goods here.
He is fast, accurate, can bowl both lengths and really hustle the batsmen and that is top batsmen let alone associate level ones. He took five wickets in the recent series against India and at 12/1 he could be a little overpriced.
WON – Back Highest Individual Score – Under 55 runs for a 3/10 stake at 2.88 with Stan James
Back D.Chameera Man of the Match for a 1/10 stake at 13.00 with Bet365
Back him here:
