The West Indies finish their tour of Sri Lanka on Wednesday with the second of two T20s. They head to Colombo without a win on tour yet and have one final chance to salvage something from what has been a tough few weeks.
Sri Lanka will be more about building for the World T20 title defence than rubbing West Indies’ noses in it but completing a perfect sweep of the matches against the West Indies would be a real feather in their caps.
It remains to be seen whether Sri Lanka make any changes to their side for this match. They were nearly perfect in the previous match taking advantage of some buffet bowling that was served up and were then tight and controlled when they had the ball in hand even when the West Indies were hitting it big.
West Indies will have been disappointed with how they bowled at Pallekele and I would be amazed if they don’t make changes off the back of that here. Ravi Rampaul would be the obvious person to come into the side although it would be helpful option wise if Andre Russell could bowl.
The R.Premadasa hosts the final match of this tour for the West Indies. This ground holds good memories for Darren Sammy’s men as this is the venue they won the World T20 at in 2012.
Amazingly Sri Lanka have won just one out of nine matches on this ground which is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. West Indies have played here four times and have two wins, a defeat and a washout.
Given that alarming stat about Sri Lanka’s record here you could easily persuade yourself to back the West Indies here especially at odds against but with rain always around the corner in that part of the world it isn’t for me particularly with the West Indies yet to win a match on this tour.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the venue does inspire them to get the job done though so I’m going to side with one of their players in the performance markets and it is the one belonging to Kieron Pollard.
Pollard totalled 66pts in the opening game in Pallekele on Monday and so I’m surprised his line is as short as 31 for this match. He took two wickets in the opening match and I reckon this pitch will suit his slower balls and things. He also went well with the bat too making 26 and only the run rate getting out of control made him throw his wicket away.
If we also remember he’s a top class fielder there are plenty of scoring methods for the all-rounder and whichever way he does it a line of 31 just looks too low.
Back K.Pollard’s Performance – 31pts or more for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
Blog cricket YTD: +34.23pts
