 The action will continue at Dambulla with the third ODI between Sri Lanka
and Pakistan at the same venue to be played on Monday. With Sri Lanka up
2-0, Pakistan will need to come up with something special to stop the rampaging
Sri Lankans.
Click for Live Score Card of Sri Lanka vs Pakistan
Pakistan's problems in both their games have been their batting and the inability
to play swing and seam bowling. The bowling has been mediocre, but with the
willow-wielders doing nothing to assuage the issues that had first surfaced
in the test series, Pakistan has some big thinking to be done. For once, I think
that the decision to drop Mohammad Yousuf from the playing eleven in
the second ODI was shocking to say the least. While the axe on Misbah-ul-Haq
was expected, dropping both the senior men put a tremendous amount of pressure
on the opening slot and the middle order and they seemed to have capitulated
under the pressure.
To me, it will make sense for Younus Khan to get in an opening combination
which can be entrusted upon the responsibility for a longer period of time -
probably Kamran Akmal along with Imran Nazir - and then have the
rest of the batsmen bat at their normal positions. Yousuf deserves to be in
the playing eleven, and needs to bat the middle overs where most of the Pakistanis
have struggled against the seamers.
For Sri Lanka, this is a big turnaround from the times of using spinners as
their sole weapons of mass destruction. One would have expected the likes of
Murali and Mendis to run through the batting line-ups on pitches which would
turn as much as one could have thought of. Rather contrastingly, the wickets
have been green, and once the Pakistani capability to handle such pitches was
exposed, the Lankans have gone ahead and exploited it to the fullest.
Thilan Thushara and Nuwan Kulasekera have been excellent with the new
ball and scythed through the top and the middle order like a hot knife through
butter, where as Murali has then come in and maintained the pressure with razor-sharp
bowling. The Lankans will look to continue doing the same and hence, I do not
see any changes in the bowling order for the third game.
The batting should also remain unaffected, though, I still believe that the
middle order can be strengthened with some aggression, in case the Pakistanis
do manage to get to a decent score. For now, the likes of Thilan Samaraweera
and the rest at numbers five, six and seven look a little out of sorts for the
fifty overs format.
However, it does seem like Pakistan will need to re-strategise to hold any
chance of making a comeback into the series.
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