The second game of the Cricket T20 World Cup double header on Sunday sees Sri Lanka and the West Indies battling for supremacy in Group 1 as it reaches the halfway stage.
Both sides won their opening matches without too much fuss and with two matches to come a win here would leave whoever comes out on top needing one more win to come through to the knockout stages. Defeat isn’t disastrous for either as long as it isn’t particularly heavy.
Sri Lanka looked to be in a real battle against Afghanistan in their opening match but the class of Tillakaratne Dilshan and the experience and calmness of the captain Angelo Mathews weathered the storm and guided their side to victory. They will want to perform better in all departments in this match and might need to.
You never know whether Sri Lanka are going to make changes to their side but the one thing we do know is that Lasith Malinga won’t feature for them in this one. He has been ruled out of the tournament which is a huge blow to their chances of defending their title.
West Indies were far too good for England in their first match on Wednesday. They rode the back of a Chris Gayle onslaught with the bat but they had plenty more to come were Gayle to have been dismissed. They bowled pretty well too given that they restricted England to the lowest total in Mumbai so far.
There is no reason for the West Indies to change the side unless they feel the small boundaries here doesn’t allow for two spinners. If they only go with one then they have Jason Holder on the sidelines itching to get stuck into the tournament.
We move to the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore for the first time in this tournament for this match. The only previous T20 international on this ground was quite low scoring but since then the wicket has become something of a batsman’s paradise.
We’ve seen how tiny the ground is in the IPL and with the place being slightly above sea level the ball flies a million miles here so we should be getting plenty of high scores here especially as the curator believes the grass on the deck will help the ball come onto the bat.
You’ll very rarely get me betting on the match outcome on this ground because it is near impossible to defend especially at this time of year when the dew comes into play. I would need extreme value to get involved in the match betting and we don’t get that here.
There is a side market I like though and it comes in the form of the West Indies total sixes where a 7.5 line looks too low. They will obliterate this line if they bat first and I guess really the only chance of the bet losing is Sri Lanka batting first and not putting up a big enough score for the West Indies to need to hit big.
Even then that is only a slight concern because it just isn’t the Caribbean way to tone things down and be more controlled. They go out to entertain, to show off, to look flashy and to dominate and that is what I expect them to do here.
We should make the point that this is Chris Gayle’s home ground in the Indian Premier League and so he will know every inch of this wicket. Off the back of a ton in Mumbai it would be a big surprise if he doesn’t go well and if he gets going and a couple of others play well around him they’ll be up to eight sixes in no time.
Back West Indies Over 7.5 sixes for a 6/10 stake at 1.73 with Paddy Power
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