Sri Lanka vs Pakistan – 1st ODI – Match Preview
Pakistan and Sri Lanka will be up against each other tomorrow in the first of the five-match One Day International (ODI) series at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium.
The Green Shirts have a massive psychological advantage over the Islanders because of their recent performances. Pakistan defeated Sri Lanka in the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/United-Arab-Emirates-c3033 last year and
also outclassed Mahela Jayawardene’s men in the Asia Cup 2012.
Honours were shared in the T20 series but the visitors’ batting struggled at Hambantota, where the bowlers were getting extra-assistance from the pitch. However, some of the senior players like Misbah ul Haq and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Younis-Khan-c98325 have returned to the side and
will surely boost the strength of the team.
Pakistan’s young batting sensation, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 in the limited-over cricket
since last three years and one expects him to play a huge innings in the upcoming series.
The Green Shirts have a lot of depth in their batting but their vulnerability against the moving ball often leads to their downfall. In the presence of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Umar-Gul-c94604, the Green Shirts have a strong bowling attack but they need the
batsmen to support them.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ashantha-Lakdasa-Francis-de-Mel-c46253, has admitted that his team has a massive challenge in front of them to counter the Pakistani bowlers. While praising the strength of Pakistan’s bowling, De Mel did not forget to mention that Misbah’s men
can be equally brilliant with the bat on a given day.
De Mel said, "It is the Pakistani spinners we need to be careful of. Saeed Ajmal and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/HMRKB-Herath-c1559 comes anywhere close to them. The advantage the Pakistan team has is that it also has
batsmen who can be useful bowlers, for instance opener http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mohammad-Hafeez-c76898, who can bowl off-breaks. This adds a lot of variety to their attack and balances their team nicely.”
Sri Lanka, on the other hand, have a top-heavy batting line-up with http://www.senore.com/Cricket/DPMD-Jayawardene-c1397 batting high up the order. However, the home team’s think-tank may have to reorganise the batting order, as they will need experience
in the latter half of the innings to cope with the threat posed by Pakistani spinners.
There is an added pressure on the Sri Lankan batsmen to score runs as they do not have a very strong bowling attack, like Pakistan. In order to do so, the big three will have to take the responsibility on their shoulders because since the last eight months,
the youngsters have not read Ajmal or Afridi quite well.
Odds are against Sri Lanka but one thing is for sure that Jayawardene and company is a fighting unit and they will not go down easily, especially in their own backyard, where the pitches assist their style of play.
Both the teams will be looking to take an early lead in the series and let us hope that we witness better pitches in the ODI series as compared to the two T20Is last week.
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