Sri Lanka looking to turn tables on world champs…..

The first ODI played on one of the driest surfaces produced at the R Premadasa Stadium saw Sri Lanka come second best to Australia who managed to pull off a much needed win by three wickets on Sunday.

The second game of the five-match series is at the same venue today and Sri Lanka expect the curator to come up with a pitch that is not extremely dry but dry enough for their spinners to come into play.

What Sunday’s game revealed was that no matter what the surface was Australia had a battery of fast bowlers headed by Mitchell Starc to exploit any condition.

Australian skipper Steve Smith and spinner Nathan Lyon during practice at the R Premadasa Stadium nets.
The tour of Sri Lanka has been a memorable one for Starc who reached a century of wickets in Tests as well as ODIs becoming the quickest in the history of the game in the latter format.

The addition of one-day specialist James Faulkner (man of the match in the 2015 World Cup final against New Zealand) in the Australian line-up has given their bowling more teeth. Starc and Faulkner combined to take seven wickets for 70 runs in 20 overs to strangle the Lankan batting and restrict them to a total of 227 that was within reach of Australia despite the threat of spin.

Sri Lanka skipper Angelo Mathew admitted the difference Starc and Faulkner made to the match.

“Starc bowled really well in the Tests and now in the ODIs. We have a clear plan for him – to refrain from attacking him, so that we don’t give him wickets,” said Mathews at the pre-match press conference yesterday.

“If we can score 40 or 50 runs off him, we feel that we can catch up against the other bowlers. Because he’s bowling well, we should give him that respect. But at the same time we also have to put his loose balls away,” he said.

“With James Faulkner, his variations were excellent on that pitch, because of how dry it was. We struggled with those variations, so we’ll come with a plan tomorrow.”

Sri Lanka who were quite successful with their spinners in the three Tests went into the first ODI hoping to repeat it in the fifty-over format as well, but Australia’s fast bowler’s did an excellent job to keep them down to a total that in the end proved insufficient for their bowlers to defend.

Boosted by their win in the first ODI, Australia will be looking to extend their 1-0 lead in the series by winning today’s match as well.

From Sri Lanka’s viewpoint they will need to come up with a bigger total than they did on Sunday.

Mathews said that they don’t want to meddle with the batting line-up after just one game which means the batters will remain the same.

“No idea of changing the batting order we might perhaps make one change if required to the team. For most of the time we plan to go with the same team according to the pitch,” said Mathews.

“We’ve included Angelo Perera for injured fast bowler Nuwan Pradeep (hamstring injury) and he along with Seekkuge Prasanna are in the fray to be selected for tomorrow’s game.”

Commenting on Angelo Perera’s selection coach Graham Ford said, “The selectors felt that he played really well in England. He’s a very capable player. I remember him from the first time I was involved with the team. He has a chance of playing. He had a good net today so there’s a chance that he could be considered, yes.”