The cricket world is ready to see an Asian clash today at
7.00 PM local and 1.30 GMT which will be hosted at R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo.
The clash is nothing but a much coveted cricket match of ICC T20 World Cup 2012
Semi Final.
Pakistan and
Sri Lanka are ready for this match to step into the final of this
tournament. These two teams encountered each other in 2009 in ICC T20 World Cup
2012 Final. For Pakistan, this is the fourth consecutive year when the nation
is making their semi final appearance in this short five years history of ICC
T20 World Cup and for Sri Lanka, this the third time in five years that they
are appearing in the final of this tournament.
This battle is especially between the spinners of the two squads,
more specifically between Saeed Ajmal and Ajantha Mendis. Both of them have
been fabulous and outstanding in this tournament and Mendis has already bagged
nine wickets from five matches played so far. He is the real threat of the
opponents. Ajmal is also not set back in his performance and in recent years,
he has proved himself as one of the most consistent spinner of his team.
After outsmarting the supremely talented Australia with a
big margin in the Super Eights, the confidence level of the Pakistan team has
automatically accelerated and they are now ready to shot their blazing bullets
on Sri Lanka to move into the final and face the winner of the second semi
final battle between West Indies and Australia. Moreover, the team is studded
with batsmen like Imran Nazir, Akmal brothers, Nasir Jamshed and Hafeez who are
capable of handling spin bowling quite efficiently on their bats but it is to
see that how Mendis and his assisting spinners spins their delivery on their
home track to outsmart these explosive batsmen to assure their position in the
final. Umar Gul has done impressively in the last match and Pakistan is ready
to use their trump card, Raza Hasan in this do-or-die match. This time the team
has not yet experienced Afridi’s impact and is waiting for the experience in
this knock out match. But what this team needs is the consistency among the
openers to rule the team’s score board till the middle order.
Now for Sri Lanka, the most important advantage is they are
playing in their home ground. Tillakaratne Dilshan, Kumar Sangakkara and
Mahela Jayawardene,
all are in superb form and are have been among high score in this tournament so
far. Hafeez and his boys have played more matches in this ground than the host
nation and among the three played matches, they won two. So Pakistan knows what
Premadasa track wants to give them a success over Sri Lanka. But now it is to
see that whether the Pakistan spinners will be able to trouble these great Sri
Lankan batsmen or not. The greatest internal threat for Sri Lanka is the
irresponsible bowling of Angelo Mathews who has bowled only a dozen over in
this tournament and took only a single wicket while giving 81 runs. Moreover
his batting performance has been severely disappointing and along with him,
Jeevan Mendis, Perera and Thirimanne also proved themselves as inefficient in
batting although all of these four can slash big hits on their bats.
Both the teams are in formidable form with almost equal
chances of winning the game with Sri Lanka in a more favorable position.
However, the bookies like Bet365, SkyBET, BetFred and BetVictor are offering
8/11 for Sri Lanka’s win while others like BlueSQ, Paddy Power, William Hill,
Sportingbet and 888sport are offering 4/5. On the other side, for Pakistan’s
win, bookies like Paddy Power, Bet365, SkyBET, Sportingbet and BetVictor are
offering 11/10 while others like William Hill, BlueSQ and 888sport are offering
1.
Probable XIs of Pakistan: Mohammad Hafeez (c), Asad
Shafiq, Abdul Razzaq, Imran Nazir, Mohammad Sami, , Kamran Akmal, Nasir Jamshed,
Saeed Ajmal, , Raza Hasan, Shahid Afridi, Sohail Tanvir, Shoaib Malik, Umar
Akmal, Yasir Arafat, Umar Gul.
Probable XIs of Sri Lanka: Mahela Jayawardene (c),
Angelo Mathews, Akila Dananjaya, Dinesh Chandimal, Tillakaratne Dilshan,
Rangana Herath, Shaminda Eranga, Nuwan Kulasekara, Ajantha Mendis, Lasith
Malinga, Jeevan Mendis, Lahiru Thirimanne, Thisara Perera, Dilshan Munaweera,
Kumar Sangakkara.