Pakistan take on Sri Lanka in the fifth and the final ODI of the series at Abu Dhabi on November 23.
Pakistan has already won the series and so this game will be something of dead rubber, but if one were to look at it from the Sri Lankan perspective, they will hardly take it as that. Having lost the series 3-1 is bad enough but another loss here will put a lot of pressure on the captain Tillakaratne Dilshan and his future as the leader of the team will be in jeopardy.
Not that it is not already. As a captain, Dilshan has lost many more than he has won but more importantly, he hasn’t batted as well as one has come to expect from him. Then, in the grand scheme of things, Sri Lanka will not mind getting Dilshan, the batsman, back.
But I digress. Sri Lanka will be hurting from their fourth game loss and that is not only because they had lost the series there. It is also because of the situation from where they lost. Needing 46 runs to win in their chase of 201, Sri Lanka lost seven wickets for 19 runs to surrender meekly. Only Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene got going while the rest of them fell away to the guile of Shahid Afridi.
Afridi, who came out of his umpteenth retirement to play in this series, went on to grab five wickets to win his second man-of-the-match award in this series after he had earlier scored 75 in the game. He will continue to remain Sri Lanka’s nemesis-in-chief , even as the likes of Saeed Ajmal and Mohammad Hafeez build sufficient pressure from the other end.
Gauging by the fact that Pakistan dropped Abdul Razzaq to accommodate Shoaib Malik and then gave the latter a spell of five overs, one would like to believe that the Sharjah track had some spin for the slow bowlers. With the action moving to Abu Dhabi for this game, it will be interesting to see whether they revert back to Razzaq or if Malik can get another game.
Sri Lanka, on the other hand, have thrown almost everything at the opposition so far from the bowling perspective. However, with the top six faring the way they have in the series, it will not be such a bad idea to give another youngster a go. One of the old warhorses, Kumar Sangakkara or Mahela Jayawardene could be rested, especially the latter, who has some fitness concerns.
According to reports, Jayawardene could be going home because of a knee injury. Chamara Silva could get a look-in.
Pakistan will continue to be favourites (4/5 at
Blue Square), but my money is on Sri Lanka (11/10 at
SportingBet) to win this match.
