England produced a thoroughly one sided beating of Sri Lanka in the second ODI in Birmingham on Friday and they head to Bristol for Sunday’s third ODI knowing they can secure a share of the series with a win. A win for Sri Lanka levels the series up with two matches to come so this should be a very keenly fought ODI.
England
England broke all the records for margins of victory in the previous match when Jason Roy and Alex Hales both blasted centuries as England chased over 250 without losing a wicket, the first time that has ever been done. It was a complete performance from Eoin Morgan’s men which will encourage them.
While the opening partnership stole the show at Edgbaston we shouldn’t forget about the bowling which has taken wickets at the right time in both matches thus far and hasn’t let Sri Lanka get away from them. It will be interesting to see if that trend continues here.
Sri Lanka
Going into the series my fear for Sri Lanka was that they wouldn’t put up enough runs to be competitive and in truth they shouldn’t have got anything out of both matches having put up sub-par totals in the two games but England made enough of a pigs ear of the early part of the chase in the first game to allow Sri Lanka to tie.
As it goes it isn’t just with the bat that Sri Lanka have issues going into this third match. Clearly having failed to take a wicket in 35 overs on Friday they have some issues forming with the ball too and they will need to be erased if they are to get back into this series.
Team News
England are expected to be unchanged for this match. James Vince was released to play for Hampshire on Saturday which suggests he definitely won’t be involved and it is hard to see the bowling attack changing too much.
Sri Lanka will give fitness tests to Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal ahead of this match. Mathews didn’t seem to suffer any ill effects of his injury in Birmingham but Chandimal picked up an injury so he’s the more likely of the two to miss out here.
Bristol
This will be the 14th ODI to be staged at a ground which isn’t a Test match ground but does get ODIs in busy summers. England don’t have the best of records here with just three wins from eight matches while Sri Lanka have lost both the matches they have played on this ground so I’m not sure who will take the most positives going in here.
Usually the wicket in Bristol is a bit tacky and the boundaries hard to hit but in the last couple of years the tracks have flattened out as evidenced in the last Royal London One Day Cup match here when Hampshire almost chased down over 350. Since the flats went up the straight boundaries have become much more accessible.
Betting
Of all five venues used for this series I always had this one down as the hardest to predict and the one least likely to yield many bets. The reason for that is twofold. Firstly this ground doesn’t get ODIs regularly enough for the previous stats to be consistent and also because this match begins 36hrs after the last one finished which is a really quick turnaround particularly at this level where everything is on the line.
A dodgy forecast doesn’t help much either with rain set to come in towards the end of the match so this is a hard match to bet on. I’m not getting involved in the match betting because DLS is too likely to have a say and I’m not taking that on until I know who is chasing but there is one I will chance before the off.
That is the wicket line for Liam Plunkett where the line is 1.5 and priced very nicely and has drawn me in. Plunkett hasn’t bowled his best in the series thus far but has still taken two wickets in both matches and bowls at the times when the cheap wickets are given out.
The one thing we’ve seen when he has bowled is that the Sri Lankans really struggle against his pace and there should be something in this wicket for him here so I fancy Plunkett to go well especially if he gets to bowl at the tail again. At 17/10 that is priced just highly enough to get me interested.
Tips
WON – Back L.Plunkett Over 1.5 wickets for a 3/10 stake at 2.70 with Coral
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