The Group B includes New Zealand, South Africa, SriLanka and England. The only real contenders in this group are SriLanka and South Africa, the pundits have given New Zealand a higher rating then they deserve for this tournament just because they have performed well in this tournament in the past but the current Kiwi team in my opinion is highly inconsistent and does not have the strength to reach the finals.
Tommorrows inaugural match between SriLanka and South Africa might prove to be a trailer for the finals of the trophy both teams are undoubtedly the best Odi teams in this tournament. South Africa enjoys home advantage and have a very strong batting line up and a very ferocious and versatile pace attack other teams will have to play exceptionally well to beat South Africa. SriLanka’s team is quite balanced their bowling especially their young seam bowlers are quite impressive on top of that they have Murali, Sri Lanka’s batting is a bit inconsistent it’s a given that if their top four don’t fire they normally lose the match but Angello Matthews have provided a lot of depth and stability to their lower order. If SriLanka’s batting clicked against South Africa then the Saffers will be in trouble. From Group B South Africa and Sri Lanka are favorites to reach the Semis.
SriLanka is on top Mendis took three quick wickets and South Africa is reeling at 115/4.
Ian Chappel said South Africa doesn’t have any weakness well their weakness is exposed in this match.
They struggled against Ajmal and Afridi in T20 WC and now they are struggling against M&M.
The spin duo has strangled and choked them. Smith and Kallis dominated Matthews and Kalusekara but from the moment Sanga introduced Spin SA are just struggling.
I can’t believe Non Asian teams are still struggling against Mendis.
South Africa will be under pressure after this match against Newzealand and England.
SrfiLanka scored 319 in 50 overs, its a huge score but they could have scored 20 more runs if they had sent Matthews a bit earlier and had Samaraweera played a bit more aggressively. South Africa are not completely out of the match they have the batting to chase this kind of total just the other day they scored 388 in a warm up match.
It would be a perfect start for the CT if the South African’s chase this total or come close to it.
6 overs to go and SriLanka are 268/3 these two guys should have accelerated a bit earlier, I think keeping the batting power play for the last five overs make it a bit easier for the feilding captain SriLanka could have applied a bit more pressure by taking the batting power play a bit earlier.
Sri Lanka should score around 330.
SriLanka lost Jayasuriya quickly but Dilshan and Sangakara showed that they are still in form both players have set the platform for the lower order to score 300 + SriLanka is playing Samaraweera in this match which will further strengthen their side, I think batting second and chasing 300 against the likes of Murali will be quite an impossible task.
As I said before if SriLankan team’s batting clicked it will be very hard for any team to beat them.