Pallekele: India after winning the five match ODI series against Sri Lanka 4-1 will look to carry their good form in the one-off T20 match to be played at Pallekele on August 7.
Indian team has been very impressive coming off a long break and dominated the home team in four matches out of five. Indian team has been classical in their approach and has looked the better side from the two.
Sri Lanka on the other hand has struggled and their bowling looks pretty ineffective against the strong Indian batting line-up. Their batsmen have also struggled against Indian swing bowlers and the only batsman who looked good, Kumar Sangakkara injured himself and is out of cricket from 4-6 weeks.
India will go into the match as clear favorites. All their batsmen barring Rohit Sharma has done good and all got at least one fifty plus score in the five match series. Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli are in tremendous form and on all the occasion one out of these two players played a long innings.
Power hitters like Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni also played their roles. On two occasions, Raina guided the Indian team home, and Dhoni made an attacking half-century in the final ODI.
Indian bowling has also been good, Zaheer looked threatening with the new ball and Irfan Pathan proved out to be the best bowler in the series. R Ashwin also was very consistent and was economical throughout the series. Even the Indian part-timers chipped in with good spells.
The home team on the other hand have a lot of problems. Their batsmen got out playing bad strokes on almost all the occasion and their bowling looks very week in the absence of Nuwan Kulasekara. Sri Lanka will be happy with the fact that they will play the shortest version of the game as coping with the Indian team for 100 overs looks a bit difficult for this Sri Lankan team.
The biggest problem for Sri Lanka will be the form of Lasith Malinga against India. Though Malinga picked up crucial wickets in the final two ODI’s but he conceded a lot of runs for that. Malinga is one of the best T20 bowlers in the world and the home team will be relying on him heavily.
The T20 World Cup is just round the corner and it will be played in the same conditions, both teams in this match will be looking to get an upper-hand on their opponent because these two teams are among the contenders to lift the title.
Indian Sports News Network
