ICC World Cup 2011: Preview Sri Lanka vs. Canada
Sri Lanka will start their World Cup campaign against the minnows Canada in the newly built stadium at Hambantota. To call the Sri Lankan team the host for today’s match does not seem justified as they will be as alien to the conditions as the other side.
A brand new pitch can yield some unexpected results but then that is something the cricket fans will be prepared for. After all when the last time the two teams met in the World Cup, Sri Lanka finished off the Canadian resistance under 24 overs in a game that
was the shortest ever in the tournament history.
A Stark Contrast
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758 are the 1996 World champions and the last edition’s finalists. Canada is still a newcomer to International cricket. The former has an impressive list of seasoned performers, with names like Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara, and Muttiah Muralitharan
to boot. The latter has a mix of imported and home grown U-19 players including their Indian born skipper, Ashish Bagai, the 16 year old Nitish Kumar and the oldest player in the World Cup, John Davison. The Lankan team is considered among the front runners
for this year’s coveted trophy while not much is expected of the inexperienced Canadian side.
The Spotlight
The lesser known team from Canada will not be under any sort of pressure and will therefore have the luxury to go on an all out attack without thinking of the repercussions. Winning will be the ultimate dream but the prime focus will be on the quality of
the show they put up. The Lankans will bear the burden of great expectations. They will have their sights set on a thumping victory as anything less than that will be a failure. Perhaps it will be one of those matches whose result was inevitable from the very
start and it still aroused everyone’s interest.
Key Players
The Sri Lankans have a lot of stars in their teams with almost every other player capable of turning the tide in his teams favour. Tillakaratne Dilshan, Mahela Jayawardene and the captain Kumar Sangakkara will in particular be the ones to watch out for when
they come out to bat. Muttiah Muralitharan and Lasith Malinga will take up the role of leading the bowling attack and destroying the opposition teams batting order.
The warm-up game against the English team established Rizwan Cheema as a potential match winning batsman and a player to be keenly followed during the tournament. Khurram Chohan is another player who did very well in the matches leading up to the World Cup.
A lot is expected from the young Nitish Kumar so he can make a difference to how Canada will fair against the Sri Lankans.
What the captains have to say
“In the warm-up game against England, there were nerves for the younger guys because we've got five Under-19s players in the side. We got that out of the way. Now, tomorrow is about no pressure, nobody expects us to win and we want to spin that positively
and use it to our advantage. “
Ashish Bagaii, the Canadian captain, seems to be in right frame of mind before going in to the opening match.
"I think our job is to try and win the first game. It's important to build it up step by step. You have to take it game by game. You can't change what other people say about us whether they say that we are good enough to win the tournament or whatever,"
Kumar Sangakkara, the Sri Lankan skipper, is focused on winning matches and plays down the hype surrounding his team.
Teams (probable)
Sri Lanka: Tillakaratne Dilshan, Upul Tharanga, Kumar Sangakkara (Capt. & wk), Mahela Jayawardene, Chamara Kapugedera, Thilan Samaraweera, Angelo Mathews, Dilhara Fernando, Rangana Herath, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Muttiah-Muralitharan-c78157, Lasith Malinga.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Henry-Osinde-c62693, Harvir Baidwan.
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