Australia are favourites to win
Australia won their third straight one-day international against Sri Lanka at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium on Sunday and zipped up the 5-match series 4-1. The teams will now gear up for the 2-match T20 international series - the last series of the tour. Pallekele International Cricket Stadium will also be hosting the first of these matches on September 6. Play will begin at 7 PM local time.
Australia were last seen in T20 action almost five months ago at the World T20 in India while Sri Lanka last played a T20 game in July against England.
Read on for our betting tips and match prediction for Sri Lanka vs Australia first T20 international...
Pallekele has seen three good first-innings scores in its last four T20Is. This includes the 198 and the most recently made 215 (both scored by Sri Lanka) in November last year. These games were not won by a big margin, meaning that runs have been scored in the second innings as well.
There have been 13 T20Is at this ground which were neither tied nor ended without a result. Since 9 of these matches were won by the side batting first, the toss-winning team may want to bat first here and put up a score of around 180.
The scales should definitely tip in Australia's favor if they win the toss and bat first. But Sri Lanka will have a sniff if they keep them below 160.
Predicted Score: Around 160
Batting was a big disappointment in the ODI series as the hosts managed to score beyond 250 just once and they were dismissed before the 50 overs on four occasions. Angelo Mathews is injured and his absence was clearly felt in the last match. Dinesh Chandimal and Kusal Mendis were the most successful batsmen in the series and Sri Lanka will be relying heavily on them. They are joint favorites to top-score and both will have to score big to take the team to around 160.
The Australian quicks took more wickets than the spinners and Mitchell Starc has been the biggest threat on this tour. He struck early throughout the ODI series and he is most likely to cause some early damage here as well. James Faulkner did a great job alongside Starc and he could be hard to deal with in the death overs. Adam Zampa will always be the key bowler in these conditions and he stands a good chance of finishing with the best bowling figures. If Australia pick up Chandimal and Mendis at the start, they could restrict Sri Lanka to below 150.
Predicted Score: Around 180
Their batsmen have surprised everyone with their ability to cope on these spinning tracks, especially after being bamboozled by spin in the tests. George Bailey, Matthew Wade and Aaron Finch were the standout performers with the bat for Australia. Stand-in skipper David Warner also got his bat talking with a match-winning hundred after scoring just 38 runs in his previous four innings. If Warner, Bailey and Wade do well on Tuesday, Australia should be on course for 180.
Sri Lanka mostly depend on their spinners to do the job at home, and it won't be any different when they take on Australia in the T20 series. Dilruwan Perera and Amila Aponso are the ones that Australia will have to be watchful against. Perera took three wickets in the last ODI and finished as the leading wicket-taker for his side. He also has figures of 3-26 against Australia at this ground in a T20I in 2011 and so has a strong chance for being the Lankan top-bowler. Sri Lanka will have to send Warner, Bailey and Wade back quickly if they don't want to be chasing something around 180.
Australia, on their last visit to the island nation in 2011, had lost the 2-match T20I series against the hosts by 2-0. Both these games were played at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium.
Overall, the two teams have gone head-to-head in this format eight times with Sri Lanka leading 6-2. The last five T20Is have all been won by Sri Lanka.
The ICC T20 rankings of both these teams don't look good with Australia at no. 6 and Sri Lanka at no. 8. The latter, however, has an excellent recent T20 record at this ground with only one loss from their previous ten matches. The visitors have played two T20Is here against the hosts and have defeats in both of them. Plus, Sri Lanka also have a strong 20-over record over Australia, be it home, away or neutral venue games.
But the way Sri Lanka have been playing their limited overs cricket in recent times has raised a lot of doubts in the minds of many. They could not capitalize on the solid momentum they had gained with the test series victory and ended up receiving a 4-1 ODI series drubbing instead. Also, the Australians seem to be gelling well under the new leadership of David Warner whereas Sri Lanka’s batting is going to take a hit with the absence of their experienced and regular skipper Angelo Mathews.
Sri Lanka have performed much better in T20s against Australia in the past. But going by current form, we predict the visitors to win this first T20 international.
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