 Australia
will play Sri Lanka in the fifth ODI of the series at the RPS in Colombo on Monday. Australia have already won the series and will be happy to have begun under
the new regime with a win and will now be able to rotate their players for this
game; unless of course they want to go into the game with a mood to ensure that
they can win it 4-1.
Sri Lanka would be disgruntled with the way they performed in the series. they
have already lost three games and will now be wishing to get going and score
a big one; unlike what they did in the previous match where the side struggled
with the bat. Against a good quality side, and on a track which supported the
batting, Sri Lanka were bowled out for 135, hardly a recipe for making
it through to a series-levelling win.
Click for Live Score Card of Sri Lanka Vs Australia
It will not be easy for Sri Lanka now. They had already made some changes to their
line-up for the previous game but the biggest one of them all was the fact that
they reduced their batting strength to get more bowlers. That move, in the fourth
ODI seemed to have backfired big time as they collapsed this badly.
What would hurt the side even more is the fact that they lost four wickets
to the spinner, an inexperienced spinner in Xavier Doherty, who made
it difficult for the Lankans when they tried to go after the left-arm spinner.
Australia had got in Shaun Marsh into the side in place of Steven Smith,
which was a good move given the fact that the original opener, Brad Haddin
was struggling with the batting while the leg-spin of Smith wasn't working in
the Lankan conditions.
What Australia will want to do is to bat first in the fifth game; it is not
a pitch where their batsmen will be able to chase down a target of 250 or more,
especially with Prasanna Seekugge doing as well as he was to go with Ajantha Mendis, who has had a good time against the Aussies.
Sri Lanka will want to prop their batting up but at the same time, will know that
if six batsmen cannot do the job, not even seven can. So, won't be a bad idea
if they continue with the same tactic.
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