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Pallekele: Zimbabwe captain Elton Chigumbura won the toss and chose to bowl against Sri Lanka in their group A World Cup clash at Pallekele on Thursday.
The chance for the Lankans is, to find some much-needed rhythm as they enter the key stage of the competition. Since smashing Canada by 210 runs in Hambantota on February 20, Sri Lanka have had mixed results. They lost a game they should have won against Pakistan by 11 runs, before bouncing back through paceman Lasith Malinga's brilliance against Kenya. The big match against Australia was washed out, with Lanka delicately placed at 146/3.
At Pallekele, Kumar Sangakkara and his boys have an opportunity to bring it all together and gift their country with a win on their debut game at this picturesque stadium. A thumping win should put the team in a good frame of mind before the bigger battles arrive. The only reasonable challenge, perhaps, should come from Zimbabwe's spinners, who controlled the Australian batsmen, particularly their openers wonderfully well in their first game.
Zimbabwe have played as many as four tweakers in their World Cup games so far, though skipper Elton Chigumbura indicated that seeing the hardness of the surface, he would alter the composition of his team to include more pacemen in the attack.
The African side's main problem has been their batting, which flourished only against Canada at Nagpur, where they scored 298/9 to crush the North American side by 175 runs and record their only win of the tournament. Tatenda Taibu scored 98 in that game, but to expect him to do something similar on Thursday would be asking for the moon.
What works in Zimbabwe's favour is the slight pressure on Sri Lanka to romp through. The minnows received batting lessons from none other than Brian Lara before coming into the World Cup and their 'teacher' must be extremely unhappy with how his pupils have fared so far.
Lara played Sri Lankan off-spin king Muttiah Muralitharan tremendously well on these wickets. He would have told them a thing or two about tackling Murali but that is the only thing he can do.
Sri Lanka will eye a healthy feast on Thursday night. They have been ruthless on 'smaller' teams so far. In a new stadium, in front of their cheering fans, the hosts would love to do it once again.
