Pallekele: Having endured a whitewash in the Test series against Sri Lanka, Australia will look to make amends as they gear up for the fifth and final one-day international in Pallekele on Sunday.
Australia won’t be able to achieve a clean sweep because Sri Lanka won the second ODI in Colombo by 82 runs, but a 4-1 scoreline can alleviate some of the pain and boost their confidence ahead of the two Twenty20 internationals.
Sri Lanka have a tough task ahead of them. Losing Angelo Mathews, the skipper, to a calf tear he suffered during the fourth ODI is a telling blow. The home side has also rested a couple of players in order to bring in some fresh legs.
Thisara Perera, the allrounder, and Lakshan Sandakan, the left-arm spinner, have been replaced in the squad by Niroshan Dickwella and Dasun Shanaka, while Mathews’s replacement will be Upul Tharanga.
Meanwhile, Australia have lost Shaun Marsh and Nathan Coulter-Nile to injury, having earlier sent Steven Smith home to reduce the work load on the skipper. David Warner has been the leader in his place and so far, the left-hand opener has not been a disappointment although he would have liked to have made more runs. However, George Bailey, Aaron Finch, Matthew Wade and John Hastings have all been firing in unison, making the stand-in captain’s job much easier.
Sri Lanka will surely miss Mathews’s leadership, but the more pressing problem is finding a new opening pair in the wake of Tillakaratne Dilshan’s retirement.
They tried out Dhananjaya de Silva and Avishka Fernando, but while Dhananjaya stroked his way to a classy 76, Fernando, the 18-year-old debutant, was out for naught. But Fernando is unlikely to be judged harshly as it’s no small task facing up to Mitchell Starc, even for old pros.
