We have another double header of action in the T20 World Cup on Thursday and it begins with what is effectively a knockout contest when Sri Lanka take on the Netherlands in the penultimate match in Group A in Geelong.
The forecast for this day of action looked terrible earlier in the week but it has cleared up enough to be quite nice so we should see a conclusion to what is the biggest match of the tournament so far. The equation is simple. The winner goes through and the loser most likely goes out.
Sri Lanka
This has already been an up and down campaign for the Sri Lankans. They came here with plenty of expectation on them after winning the Asia Cup last month but immediately shoved themselves under insane pressure when they were well beaten by Namibia in their opening game. To their credit they bounced back in style to see off the UAE in their second one and won by such a margin that they know they only need to win this game.
I think if Sri Lanka are going to win this tournament they will need to bat a lot better than they have done in the competition to date. I am prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt with the bat because this Geelong pitch is not up to the standard of a tournament like this but we will need to see better. In the main though they have bowled well but the issue they have is injuries are starting to build up and are in danger of catching them out.
Netherlands
There have been good and bad things about the opening two matches for the Netherlands. The positive is that they have won both of their matches but the negative is that they have limped over the line in both of them and done so to the extent that they are going to need a third win if they are going to qualify. If they lose here they will be hoping UAE beat Namibia and in fairness that isn’t the position they want to be in.
They have brought it on themselves though because they have had both their run chases under complete control and just fallen over the line which means their net run rate is nowhere near as good as it should be. The good thing though is that in both matches their bowling has been very hard to score off so they have got the hang of what to do on this pitch with the ball in hand. They will need their middle and lower order to work it out with the bat now too.
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Team News
Sri Lanka have been rocked by the news that Danushka Gunathilaka and Dushmantha Chameera have both been ruled out of the tournament. If that wasn’t bad enough then Pramod Madushan has been ruled out of this game too. Lahiru Kumara and Binura Fernando are likely to come in.
The Netherlands haven’t made any changes to their team so far but if they want to change anything here then they have Brandon Glover waiting in the wings to come in. Timm van der Gugten is another waiting for his chance.
Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets for this match with the first of them coming in the match runs where a line of 295.5 runs looks well on the high side. There have only been two scores in eight innings over 125 in this group and while this one might not be quite as low scoring as that, I don’t think it is going to be high scoring because the conditions don’t dictate that. This is an extremely hard pitch to time the ball on and the straight boundaries are humungous and the outfield gets slower as the day goes on. Furthermore, the Netherlands have played Sri Lanka twice in this format and have been bombed out for 39 and 44. The first one was eight years ago which might not be relevant but the other one was last year which certainly is. The Netherlands struggle to play mystery spin and they’re getting it double barrels here. Sri Lanka aren’t batting great so this looks like a line that is way too high.
Speaking of the Netherlands not playing mystery spin too well I can’t turn down the performance line of Wanindu Hasaranga here. In an ideal world it wouldn’t have crept above 40 points but even 42.5 is still achievable. He took 3/9 from three overs in that match in the T20 World Cup last year and earlier in the week against UAE, who you would think would be better suited to play spin given their heritage, he took 3/8 in four overs. It isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that he covers this line with the ball but with Sri Lanka running low on players he could go up the order and get a bat so if he can chip the three runs we would only need two wickets which you would think is well within his range. However he does it I like the over here.
Tips
Back Under 295.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
Back W.Hasaranga’s Performance – Over 42.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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