Sri Lanka will look to cement their place in the semi-finals by beating Ireland in their Super Eights game at Lord’s and given the respective form, it does not look too unlikely!

Ireland’s first Super Eight game had seen them getting routed by the Kiwis, while Sri Lanka had thwarted the Pakistani challenge to garner two points.

Sri Lanka (1/20 at 888Sport to win game) has a very balanced side with both, their bating and bowling, looking good. Ireland (10/1 at Coral to cause an upset), on the other hand, had won the first game of the tournament against Bangladesh, but after that, haven’t been really competitive.

Sri Lanka owes a lot of their success to T.Dilshan (3/1 at Sky Bet to be the top scorer of the Sri Lankan game) whose batting at the top of the order has not only been aggressive but also long lasting! Sanath Jayasuriya (4/1 at Sky Bet to top score in the inning) did not begin the tournament too well, continuing his bad form from the IPL, but has had a couple of good innings and could be a threat against a relatively weaker bowling attack.

The one batsman who hasn’t performed too well for the Lankan team in the World T20 has been Mahela Jayawardene (6/1 at 888Sport to be top Sri Lankan batsman), and has looked a tad rusty. Jayawardene’s return amongst runs will remove that last chink in their armour, and their battle with Ireland could very well turn to that of unequals.

Whatever the Sri Lankan batting lacks in – if that is indeed the case – their bowling makes up for the same! The Lankans have three of the best bowlers in the competition, and an inexperienced batting line-up of Ireland will have definite issues in facing up to them. Lasith Malinga, M.Muralitharan, Ajantha Mendis (Stan James offering 11/4 for either of the three to bowl the most economic spell) will be queuing up to bowl and add to their wickets tally, though I think that Murali could be the stingiest of all the bowlers in action during the game.

The bookies continue to favour William Porterfield as the favourite to be the highest scorer of the Irish inning, but he has failed to deliver so far. The one advantage going in his favour in the game will be the fact that as an opener, he will have a greater chance of scoring the runs than in the middle order facing up to the barrage of spin. Personally, despite his injury woes, Niall O’Brien (9/2 at Paddy Power to be the highest Irish scorer) is my favourite to the best for his country.

Tips:
Favourites: Sri Lanka (1/20 at 888Sport)
Top Sri Lankan batsman: Mahela Jayawardene (6/1 at 888Sport)
Top Ireland batsman: Niall O’Brien (9/2 at Paddy Power)