Its bright Saturday afternoon here in Kochi..!! hope it will be the same in Colombo. Team Australia all set to play a stronger opposition here in Colombo...
We hope to extend our winning streak of 31 matches in the World Cup. Our pace trio looks positive and robust after a long rest (about one week). After winning this match we could really look forward to rest some of our key players alternatively for other matches and boot up for the knockout stages. A win against Srilanka here in their soil will be a real moral booster as they are regarded as the spinning wizards of the world cricket. Even though we successfully played against all spin attack of the Zimbabwe, it didn't have enough precision to screw our batting and also we batted extra carefully against them. Initially we need to watch out for their "yorker" man Mallinga. Careful shot selection in the initial overs will sail us through. i feel Haddin should pay attention and try to stick in up to 8-10 overs. by the time spin comes Ponting and Clarke could do well with Watson.I personally think that they will play only two specialist spinners coz their batting is very weak. Hoping that we win the toss, should set up something around 270 which SL will fail to attain under the Premadasa lights (myth). If SL is gonna bat first then a 220-230 is the maximum that we can allow them to get. Considering the weak form of Lankan batting except for some odd players, we definitely have an edge over them.
The negative would be if the pitch helps the spin a lot. Then we will have trouble in scoring. Also inability of White, Hussey to play good spin attack. If Ponting and Clarke fails even after the heroics of Watson we will screw ourself into. If the pitch is turning then the scoring should be made slow and should try to stay alive till the end. Muthaiah will prove deadly in their home ground. Extra caution against him. I feel Watson will tackle Mallinga well. An initial good scoring in the power plays and saving wickets in the middle overs will help us reach a good score. Even if we make only 160-170 in the 40th over if we manage to keep 6-7 wickets we can go for the final hunt in the death overs. Well i think that could well be our strategy.
Srilankans also will be desperate to get back as they made a loss against pakisthan in home ground. Wait and Watch for the heroism and my choice players would be Ponting and Tait in their respective departments.
About two and half hours to go from now. hope that Premadasa will remain silent from beginning...
:-)
We hope to extend our winning streak of 31 matches in the World Cup. Our pace trio looks positive and robust after a long rest (about one week). After winning this match we could really look forward to rest some of our key players alternatively for other matches and boot up for the knockout stages. A win against Srilanka here in their soil will be a real moral booster as they are regarded as the spinning wizards of the world cricket. Even though we successfully played against all spin attack of the Zimbabwe, it didn't have enough precision to screw our batting and also we batted extra carefully against them. Initially we need to watch out for their "yorker" man Mallinga. Careful shot selection in the initial overs will sail us through. i feel Haddin should pay attention and try to stick in up to 8-10 overs. by the time spin comes Ponting and Clarke could do well with Watson.I personally think that they will play only two specialist spinners coz their batting is very weak. Hoping that we win the toss, should set up something around 270 which SL will fail to attain under the Premadasa lights (myth). If SL is gonna bat first then a 220-230 is the maximum that we can allow them to get. Considering the weak form of Lankan batting except for some odd players, we definitely have an edge over them.
The negative would be if the pitch helps the spin a lot. Then we will have trouble in scoring. Also inability of White, Hussey to play good spin attack. If Ponting and Clarke fails even after the heroics of Watson we will screw ourself into. If the pitch is turning then the scoring should be made slow and should try to stay alive till the end. Muthaiah will prove deadly in their home ground. Extra caution against him. I feel Watson will tackle Mallinga well. An initial good scoring in the power plays and saving wickets in the middle overs will help us reach a good score. Even if we make only 160-170 in the 40th over if we manage to keep 6-7 wickets we can go for the final hunt in the death overs. Well i think that could well be our strategy.
Srilankans also will be desperate to get back as they made a loss against pakisthan in home ground. Wait and Watch for the heroism and my choice players would be Ponting and Tait in their respective departments.
About two and half hours to go from now. hope that Premadasa will remain silent from beginning...
:-)
Screwed up..!!
ReplyDeletePunter loses toss...but hold on.. if we manage to get initial wickets ie in first 6-7 overs, then we are on...!!!
beware dont give away anything above 230-240 which will turn costly..
Game on...
http://www.espncricinfo.com/icc_cricket_worldcup2011/content/story/504424.html
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