The immense winter of international cricket continues on Tuesday when Sri Lanka entertain their Asian counterparts Bangladesh in two Test matches to get the latter’s tour of the country underway.
These two sides are lowly ranked in the Test environment and both are in what you would call a transitional phase but both have a good set of youngsters coming through who have the platform to showcase their talents here.
Schedule
1st Test: 7-11 Mar at Galle
2nd Test: 15-19 Mar at Colombo
Sri Lanka
We’ve seen plenty of Sri Lanka in the limited overs format over the last month or so but the last time we saw them in the Test arena was over Christmas in South Africa and they were found wanting as they were expected to be. The last time they played Test cricket at home they were too good for Australia which is looking like a good outcome with every day that passes of the current series in India.
Sri Lanka will be the ones under pressure in this series. They are the more established nation at this level and will be expected to come through but if they have a bad session or two there is no doubt Bangladesh have the goods to make things interesting as they showed against England earlier in the winter.
Bangladesh
You can see the improvement in Bangladesh both in their results and their performances. They picked up a draw against England earlier in the winter and then they were far from disgraced in alien conditions against New Zealand and they put up a decent showing against India last month too so there might be a confidence about Bangladesh in this series.
Bangladesh have a bowling attack which can be competitive especially in these conditions and they are gaining more confidence and belief with the bat all the time so they are entitled to fancy their chances of a result heading into this series. In these conditions they must be competitive though to show their improvement is continuing.
Head to Head
These two sides have played seven previous head to head series with Sri Lanka winning the lot as you would expect given Bangladesh’s previous lowly status in the game. In fact Sri Lanka have been so dominant when the two meet that Bangladesh have never won a Test against them and only twice have they held Sri Lanka to a draw in 16 attempts.
Betting
I’m not one for betting on the outcome of a two match series. I certainly wouldn’t be backing Sri Lanka as although they should win all of the pressure is on them and I’m sure they will feel that at some stage.
I do like one in the Sri Lanka series batsman market though. Asela Gunaratne has been doing outstanding things in recent weeks and as such he became a rich man in the IPL auction. He is fairly inexperienced at international level but he already has a Test century to his name in Zimbabwe and he hit a 50 out there too batting as low as seven in that series.
I suspect with Angelo Mathews out and a couple of others out of form that he might bat a bit higher in the order in this series. I really like his technique and his temperament looks good too and at 10/1 he looks overpriced to top score in this series.
Tips
Back A.Gunaratne Top Sri Lanka Series Batsman for a 1/10 stake at 11.00 with Bet365
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2017
