After Sri Lanka dominated the Test series and Australia were emphatic winners of the ODI series we are nicely set up for two T20 internationals for which Australia will finish their tour with. We’ve not really seen many competitive matches between these two so it would be nice if the tour concludes with a pair of great games.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka head into this match having lost seven of their last eight 20 over matches and the only match they won in that time came against Afghanistan which isn’t really much of a form guide heading into this one so they have gone from being one of the best T20 sides in the world to quite simply one of the worst.
That isn’t too much of a surprise when you consider the amount of world class talent that they are without either due to retirement or injury or even being found out in some cases. In their halcyon days the likes of Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardena and Lasith Malinga were all massive players as was Tillakaratne Dilshan and he’ll join them on the sidelines after this series as he is retiring.
Australia
This will be Australia’s first T20 international since their disappointing campaign in the World T20 earlier in the year. They went out in the group stages there and despite their dominance in the 50 over sphere for so long they have never really truly convinced in this particular format of the game.
They have tried T20 specialists and keeping their 50 over side in action and nothing seems to have worked for them so it will be interesting to see if they can come up with a strategy that is successful to take into the next T20 World Cup which could potentially be in South Africa in 2018.
Team News
Sri Lanka’s injuries and comings and goings makes predicting their team quite difficult but we know Dilshan will open the batting and Kusal Perera is expected to be his opening partner. The rest of the side could be made up by anyone but Thisara Perera is expected to be included.
We know that Australia are without Aaron Finch, Steve Smith and Chris Lynn for this series because of injury or being rested in the case of Smith but they still have plenty of batting talent and if their bowlers can maintain their momentum they should be hard to beat.
Betting
I always find these almost irrelevant random T20 internationals hard to bet on particularly with regards to the match outcome and this one could be even more the case given that we can’t be completely sure how the two sides will line up so I’m not going to back either side but instead I will head to a side market.
That is the boundaries where the line of 36.5 could be a little high when you think there were only 36 boundaries in the ODI here on Sunday. Of course it should be said that the pace of T20 is much faster than an ODI but the lack of boundaries in that match highlighted that the ball quite often has the edge on the bat here and with this being a night match any dew that falls isn’t going to help the speed of the outfield any.
Neither side have a bowling attack that goes around the park and form batsmen could be few and far between so all things being equal that line looks a little on the high side in what could well be a lower scoring match than we are used to in this format.
Tips
Back Under 36.5 boundaries for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
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