Re: SL team for WI

Sri Lanka's success in recent times has been built around the batting
heroics of Tharanga, Chamara Silva and Jaysuriya. Atapattu is well
past his prime and all his innings in recent times have been quite
sluggish by the standards of ODIs. I believe Tharanga - Jaysuriya is a
great openning combination and SL should stick with them.



On 31 Mar, 08:42, "driz" <driz...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Okay, I am back ... after a long lacuna...

A couple of things that bother me about the SL lineup:

(*) Should we play Marvan Atapattu instead of Tharanga for the next
game? I just checked Statsguru .. and Tharanga, in his last 10 games,
has scored 191 runs ar 21.22, while Atapattu in his last 10 games has
177 at 25.28. IIRC, Tharanga's 64 against India had a chance or two.
Considering Atapattu's experience, and ability to anchor the innings,
it may be wiser to have him in the team, opening with Jayasuriya. It
may be ideal to partner one attacking batsman one steady bat. Besides,
right/left combination could bother the bowlers (Given a choice I
would propose dropping Mahela from the team, but unfortunately he is
skipper...)

(*) That brings the topic of Mahela. Why is he batting at important No.
3 if he is going through a bad patch? By occupying the No. 3 position,
he is wasting the power play overs, and unnecessarily putting extra
pressure on Sangakkara, Silva, and Jayasuriya.

(*) Looking at the way Sanath, Murali, Vaughan,McCallan, and Panesar
bowled on the Guayana pitch (there seem to be two pitches at
Providence. I am not sure if Eng vs Ireland was played on the same
pitch as SL vs SA) it seems to assist slow/spin bowlers: all 5 of the
above went for less than 40 and took a wicket or two. Traditionally,
WI are weak against leg-spin although current WI teams are quiet
unpredictable, with Samuels looking good against spin. Neverthless,
taking Bandara seems like a smart move. I am not too impressed with
Maharoof because he is useful once in 10 games as batsman, and his
Venkatesh-Prasad-like medium pace bowling is not going to have much
venum.

My humble request is this line-up:
Atapattu, Jayasuriya, Sangakkara, Silva, Dilshan, Arnold, Mahela,
Vaas, Malinga, Murali, Bandara

Will Moody or Mahela listen?


.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: SL team for WI
    ... He only has limited number of shots that he can play with any ... Should we play Marvan Atapattu instead of Tharanga for the next ... has scored 191 runs ar 21.22, while Atapattu in his last 10 games has ...
    (rec.sport.cricket)