The second and final Test match between Sri Lanka and New Zealand gets underway on Thursday when the two sides face off each other against in Galle with the series on the line and World Test Championship points at stake.
Sri Lanka drew first blood in the series last week so they head into this match knowing they can’t lose the series but a 2-0 win would be welcome. New Zealand have to come out on top in this one to secure a share of the spoils.
Sri Lanka
We expected Sri Lanka to have the better of the early stages of the series because while it was in much different conditions to this, they had come into the two matches off the back of three competitive games in England and in tune with the nuances of the red ball format. That showed in that first game because Sri Lanka were able to control the tempo of the match pretty much from the start and even the presidential break in between was unable to stop them.
Sri Lanka put up a couple of totals over 300 in the opening match but they might be a little disappointed not to push on and put up the 400+ score which can often be the difference between winning and losing matches. In the end their bowlers were able to defend what they had but with New Zealand likely to be a little better in this match it would certainly help the Sri Lanka cause if the entire batting order can put a full first innings together.
New Zealand
While Sri Lanka were expected to dominate the early part of the series, there was always going to be natural improvement in New Zealand because their warm up match was completely washed out against Afghanistan so the Kiwis arrived into this series completely cold from a competitive red ball match persuasion. It was obvious that New Zealand got better the longer the opening match went on and they will expect to show even more in this match.
New Zealand will probably be disappointed that they could only manage a 35 run first innings lead in the opening game. At 269-4 they trailed by just 36 runs and at that point with Tim Southee batting at nine they would have had their sights set on 450 and a commanding lead but they lost six for 71 runs and allowed Sri Lanka to stay in the game. That might be where the natural improvement comes from but their bowlers will be much more in tune to the conditions now too which should help.
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Team News
Sri Lanka have surprised everyone by making two changes to a side which won pretty well in the opening match but the chop has come for Lahiru Kumara and Ramesh Mendis with Milan Rathnayake returning to the side and Nishan Peiris coming in for his debut.
New Zealand haven’t named their side at the time of writing but the performance of Mitchell Santner in the opening game has to be a concern. They have Michael Bracewell waiting to come in if they want to change it.
Betting
I took the performance market of Kamindu Mendis in the opening match of the series and he covered it in the first innings with another excellent ton and even though he ended with a total of 137 points in the match his target for this game has only gone up from 72.5 to 74.5 and that doesn’t seem a big leap to me. I say that not only because he covered in it in innings in the first game but also because of what he had offered with the bat in England too.
The other reason why I like his performance over in this match as much as I did in the first one, if no more, is because he only bowled one over in the first game and you’ve got to think that a second match on this square in a week is going to lead to more spin being bowled and if it does then he could get a few more overs against a side who aren’t the most natural players of spin going around. Whether he bowls or he doesn’t he has 75 runs in him here so I’ll play the same bet that I did in the first game.
Tips
Back Kamindu Mendis’ Performance – Over 74.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
