Adelaide: Sri Lanka who showed some great resiliency in the tournament start as a clear a favorite when they take on Australia in the last of best three finals start here on Thursday.
Sri Lanka who had quite a moderate record in the league and required a last over thriller win against to qualify for the final has picked the tempo very well and played some cricket. Sri Lanka chasing 322 in the first final lost it by a mere 15 runs and in the next one just smashed Australian bowlers to chase down 272 in 45 overs with eight wickets in hands.
The biggest strength is their balanced attack with all the departments complimenting each other well. Sri Lanka’s batting attack looks deadly and they are not showing any mercy to the Australian bowlers. Openers Tillakaratne Dilshan, top scorer of the series and Mahela Jayawerdene are playing are looking deadly at the top of the order setting up an ideal platform for the middle orders to go ahead and take the game away from the Australians.
Meanwhile the Australians are not just able to hold on to their grounds and their bowling department looked completely out of sync in both the finals. Australia also face injury woes before into the finals with Michael Clarke and James Pattinson down with hamstring injury and buttock strain respectively certain to miss the match. If this was not enough for them, they had more bad news in stock for them with David Warner who has scored two successive centuries as he is also battling a groin injury.
The situation is grave for Australia who is not able to get it right complimented with injury problems and on the other hand it is Sri Lanka brimming with confidence. It would surely be an exciting match to watch with both these superpowers going into the finals with anticipated fireworks on the cards.
Mahela Jayawerdene fined for showing dissent
Jayawardene who was involved in discussion with on field umpires Asad Rauf and Bruce Oxenford was fined for it and is said to have breached article 2.1.3 of the ICC code of conduct which relates to “showing dissent at an umpire decision during an international match.”
He was fined 10 percent fee of the match due to the animated discussion in the 44th over the match.
By Indian Sports News
