The middle match of the three in the T20 series between Sri Lanka and West Indies takes place in Dambulla on Tuesday as the Caribbean men continue their white ball tour of the island in the second T20, a couple of days after the pair entertained in the opener.
West Indies drew first blood in the series so they have the chance to take the spoils with a match to spare here but there was more than enough in that Sri Lanka showing in the opening game to suggest they are not done with yet which makes for an appealing contest.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka went into the series with a little bit of a point to prove after a really poor T20 World Cup and not really offering much in a subsequent three matches against the winners of that tournament India and to be fair to them they put up a creditable showing and were probably largely beaten by the toss as much as anything. You could argue that they failed to make the most of the final over of their batting innings but that would probably be being picky.
The match got away from them in the bowling powerplay though. They looked to have certainly a par total on the board if not slightly better than that, but the West Indian openers took the game away from them and if the Sri Lankans are to get back into this series then they will need to find a way to deal with those. It might be that opening with spin is the way forward rather than allowing them to find their stride against a seamer but if the pitches slow up more that would probably be a natural choice.
West Indies
When you consider that these pitches are not conducive to the way that West Indies like to play their T20 cricket, added to the fact that they didn’t have a warm up match and arrived fairly late given that the Caribbean Premier League season only conceded a little under a week before the tour began, for West Indies to win that opening match with the likelihood of natural improvement to come sets them up nicely for this second game of the series.
The positive thing for West Indies is that they batted really well. They only hit five sixes in their 180/5 which tells us that they have found the ability to get the job done when bashing everything out of the park isn’t necessarily an option. They fell over the line a little in the end of their run chase but the rest of their performance was very strong. They will want to hold their nerve a little better with the ball but there was a lot to be encouraged by for the tourists.
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Team News
You would think that Sri Lanka will be looking to make changes to their bowling to try and get some control in the early part of the innings. Nuwan Thushara would be the obvious pick with Chamindu Wickramasinghe the most vulnerable given that he conceded 27 from two overs.
Shamar Springer went for 12.50 an over in the first game and his time might be up in the side with spin likely to take precedence for the remainder of the series Fabian Allen could come in and offer something with the bat and the ball.
Betting
I’m not always one to back a bet a second time in succession just because it won the first time around but I do think the performance line of Wanindu Hasaranga is worth taking again because the line hasn’t shifted. To be fair, he only covered it right on the number in the first game but he didn’t come to the crease until the penultimate over in that opener and by the time he came on to bowl West Indies were in a position where they could try and play his four overs out without too much damage.
Despite that, Hasaranga still covered with a run, a wicket and two catches and when you consider that the pitches are going to start turning more and more with all three games being on the same square, you would think that his bowling is going to become more of a problem for a team who don’t play spin particularly well. I’m still not sure I would trust the Sri Lanka batting to keep him away from the crease for as long as he was in the opening game so I think there is a lot more to come from one of the best leg spinning allrounders in the world so I’ll play the over again.
Tips
Back W.Hasaranga’s Performance – Over 40.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
Back him here:
