Sri Lanka’s emphatic win in the second Test over Australia last week secured the series with a match to spare and on Saturday they will go in quest of a historic series whitewash when the two sides meet for the final Test in Colombo.
It has been a series of hard toil and hefty defeats so far for Australia who look likely to lose their number one ranking and will certainly lose it if they are beaten in this match.
Sri Lanka
The opening two Test matches have yielded surprisingly easy results for Sri Lanka and the reason for that is as a collective they have batted better than Australia. In each match they have produced the match winning innings and if they can come together as one they are going to be very tough to beat.
We knew Sri Lanka had the bowling attack for these conditions going into the series but we didn’t know quite how dominant they were going to be. Their spinners much be licking their lips at the prospect of facing this Australian side once again.
Australia
The tourists don’t have to look too deep to find out where they have gone wrong so far in this series. Their scores so far in the two matches have been 203, 161, 106 and 183 and you don’t win matches anywhere in the world with those sorts of numbers. With the series over a reshuffle to the batting may be necessary.
The Australians have set their attack up how we would have expected but it has to be a concern that in these conditions which have been spin friendly it has been Mitchell Starc who they have relied on the most to take their wickets. That said he has bowled very well in the series and they will need him to go well here too if they are to force a win.
Team News
Sri Lanka might make a couple of changes with the series secured although they will be keen to wrap up a whitewash. Dimuth Karunaratne is yet to make double figures in the series and he would be the obvious contender to be left out.
Australia might make changes themselves. Given how badly they have batted you would expect any changes to come in the batting but they are quite busy in the weeks and months to come and it could be that they decide there is no point in risking Starc in a relatively nothing match.
Colombo
This will be the 40th Test match on this ground. It is a bit of a fortress for Sri Lanka who have 18 wins and 14 draws from the previous 39 matches here. Admittedly Australia haven’t found it too bad. They have won both their previous matches on this ground.
The wicket in the lead up to the match has been very dry so we can expect spin and expect it pretty early in the match. There has been a bit of a draw feel around the place but not recently and even then the way the series has gone so far it would take a serious amount of rain for this one to be a draw.
Betting
I’m not a fan at all of betting on dead rubbers and usually when I do bet on them I run for the hills in terms of the match result but it is impossible not to back Sri Lanka here given what we have seen already in the series.
Australia just can’t play their spin and even if they have found a way to combat that, and recent history suggests it isn’t just this tour that they have struggled against spin, they have to find so much more in terms of runs to bridge the gap between the two sides in the series so far.
Sri Lanka have wins by 106 runs and 229 runs and I just don’t see them letting up given that they are a new side looking to show their fans that they can compete with the big boys. They went into the series off the back of that nightmare against England and with plenty to prove. They can prove it in the ultimate style by completing a series whitewash here.
Tips
WON – Back Sri Lanka to win 3rd Test for a 4/10 stake at 2.63 with William Hill
Back them here:
