Sri Lanka vs Australia
After a complete humiliation in the Test series, Australia will be looking to get back some pride on their tour of Sri Lanka when the two sides do battle in the first of five ODIs in Colombo on Sunday. Things couldn’t have gone better for Sri Lanka in the Tests and if they follow that up in these ODIs they can feel very good about themselves.
Sri Lanka
The Sri Lankans will be looking to put their last ODI series defeat to England behind them in this series. Conditions went against them in that series and then match by match they lost bowler after bowler and it became an uphill task and very much a series to forget.
Bowling is likely to be an issue throughout this series too given that Rangana Herath did all the damage when these two sides met in the Test series. He isn’t around for the ODIs but these conditions should suit whoever are picked much better than previous ones.
Australia
This is arguably Australia’s best format right now. They should their class in away conditions when winning the tri-nations in the Caribbean not too long ago and they will be looking to follow that up with a win here to take into a fairly heavy winter programme leading up to next summer’s Champions Trophy.
One of the reasons for their success in this format has been the diversity of their bowling attack but also the depth on their batting line up. It is almost a perfect combination as they are in matches no matter what the situation which in turn provides plenty of confidence and belief.
Team News
Tillakaratne Dilshan has retired from Test cricket but he still plays ODIs and he will be in the squad for this match. Milinda Siriwardena has recovered from the injury which kept him out in England and he will play while Nuwan Pradeep is expected to feature.
Australia haven’t given off too many indications about the make up of their batting line up although it would be a surprise were anyone but David Warner and Aaron Finch walk out to open the batting. Travis Head, Shaun Marsh and Usman Khawaja could all be battling for the one spot.
R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo
There have been 120 previous ODIs on this ground and as you would expect Sri Lanka have a pretty decent record on it. In 102 matches here they have won 63 and only lost 32 with seven of the matches resulting in a no result. In contrast Australia have six wins to eight defeats from their 15 matches.
This is the first of two matches on this ground to open up the series. In eight of the last 10 matches here one of the two sides involved have scored at quicker than a run a ball which suggests the wicket is going to be fine to bat on although both camps expect the spinners to play a significant role.
Betting
I’m not going to go too mad on this series this early for a few reasons. Firstly a lot of players who didn’t play the Test series will be coming in and secondly rain is often around the area in the evening which never helps with many of the markets especially the match outcome where the DLS system is weighted too much in favour of the chasing side.
There is one bet I will side with though and that is the sixes market where I’ve found a line which looks much too low at 6.5 and the price looks very juicy at 6/5 too. The last three matches here have had 8, 12 and 12 as the sixes totals and while Australia were pap at playing spin in the Test matches I don’t expect them to be as bad here against more spaced out fields.
Both sides are suddenly full of aggressive batsmen and on a wicket which should play true to begin the series I expect there to be at least seven sixes and possibly many more given the recent history on this deck.
Tips
Back Over 6.5 sixes for a 4/10 stake at 2.20 with Coral
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