Ground Reality: Situated South of Sandton in Illovo, Wanderers nicknamed ‘The Bullring’ is the home of the Highveld Lions. Host of the 2003 cricket world cup finals, this ground goes down in history as the host of one of the greatest ODI matches when South Africa chased down a colossal target of 434 runs set by Australia. The Wanderers, which has a seating capacity of 34,000, also hosted the first match and the finals of the 2007 Twenty20 World Cup.
Pitch and Weather: Known as a typical South African pitch, Wanderers boasts a hard wicket providing assistance to the seamers. The bounce that the pitch offers is also favoured by the batsmen because the ball comes on to the bat quicker, enabling better stroke-making.
Temperature: Min-13 C Max-18 C | Forecast: Showers predicted
Team Updates:
Sri Lanka: The team from the Emerald nation would be brimmimg with confidence after defeating one of the tournament favourites – South Africa – with ease. The Lankan batting, which was thought of as the team’s weak link prior to the tournament, dispelled that notion after a power-packed performance against the Proteas. While the Dilshan show remained the stand-out performance, Sangakkara and Jayawardene’s batting displays were no mean feats either. The bowling departnemt, which has always been the back-bone of the Lankan team, lived up to its reputation, making life difficult for the South African batsmen. Sri Lanka would look to continue in the same tempo, taking on a weakened English side.
England: Following their Ashes victory against the Australians, the English were on Cloud 9. However, they were quickly brought down to the ground by the Kangaroos, who produced an emphatic 6-1 series win in the Natwest ODIs. The England team, which is already a weakened side in the absence of Pietersen and Flintoff, would now look forward to the ‘limed-overs specialists’ in the likes of Luke Wright and Owais Shah, to put up a consistent show in the Champions Trophy. A player who has been acutely short of runs is Ravi Bopara, who has to think of the Champions Trophy as the final chance to justify the selectors’ faith in him. The bowling department has Anderson, who remains England’s best bet with the ball while Swann and Onions would also be expected to perform.
Head to Head:
Sri Lanka and England faced each other only once in a Champions Trophy match. The English team had emerged victorious on that occasion.
Numbers Game:
4: The number of centuries scored by Sanath Jayasuriya in ODI’s against England. Sri Lanka have won three matches against England when Jayasuriya has scored a hundred.
26.42: James Anderson’s bowling average in 2009. He has bagged 19 wickets at a Strike rate of 30.3 in 12 bmatches that he has played this year.
Sound Bytes:
This game is gone. Whatever have happened its gone. So we have to go back to square one, back to the drawing book and see how we can improve and get better as the tournament goes on: Sangakkara stressing that the team have to capitalize on the good start that they have had in the CT.
We have not played Mendis and some of their seam bowlers before. It requires us to think pretty quick on our feet. There are some fundamentals you have to keep in mind against someone like him, but it is a new challenge: Andrew Strauss agreeing that playing against Mendis would be a challenge.
Teams:
Sri Lanka (From): Tillakaratne Dilshan, Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumar Sangakkara(w/c), Mahela Jayawardene, Thilan Samaraweera, Thilina Kandamby, Angelo Mathews, Nuwan Kulasekara, Muttiah Muralitharan, Ajantha Mendis, Lasith Malinga, Thilan Thushara, Dammika Prasad, Upul Tharanga, Chamara Kapugedera
England (From): Andrew Strauss(c), Joe Denly, Ravinder Bopara, Matthew Prior(w), Paul Collingwood, Owais Shah, Luke Wright, Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, Ryan Sidebottom, James Anderson, Graham Onions, Adil Rashid, Tim Bresnan, Eoin Morgan
