Sri Lanka v India ODI Series ...... Another Indian Blockbuster

Starts Wednesday 28th January 04.30 GMT, Dambullah
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Slumdog Millionaire, a low budget movie set in Mumbai, has taken the movie world by storm in recent weeks, culminating in a string of nominations for the Oscars.

 Wednesday sees India’s more illustrious cricketing millionaires take to the stage in the curtain raiser to this ODI series, hastily arranged after the tour to Pakistan was cancelled. It’s a five part extravaganza in the 50 over format, followed by two matinee performances in the shorter Twenty20 format.

This cast of Indians have performed to raving reviews in ODI's in the past year. They won the final CB tri series in Australia, followed that up by reaching the final of the Asia Cup tournament before finishing of the year with a 3-2 series win in Sri Lanka and making England look like B movie actors in a 5-0 series win.

However it was not all plain sailing as in that Asia Cup final and then again in the Test series in Sri Lanka, this cast of Indians fluffed their lines badly and were outshone by the new rising star of Sri Lanka, Ajantha Mendis.

He bamboozled India with his mystery spin and his script proved to be very hard to read. But with further rehearsals and practice, India slowly but surely began to work him out and they prevailed in the ODI series that followed those Tests.

This series will again boil down to how the Indians read Mendis. They will be better prepared this time having had time to reflect and time to study videos of recent games involving Sri Lanka.

Those games have seen Sri Lanka perform in the fringe theatres of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, and most recently on the bigger stage in Pakistan.

Surprisingly they struggled to beat both Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, but that was more a case of them playing on turgid, slow low tracks that proved a great leveller. On the more friendly pitches in Pakistan though, despite losing the first game, they came back in style to win the series comfortably.

Two key partnerships helped Sri Lanka to that series win against Pakistan. The Mendis/ Murali spin partnership and the new opening batting partnership of Jayasarua and the recalled Dilshan. Both these sets of players lit up the stage, but with all due respect they were facing a Pakistan team that was seriously undercooked after a year bereft of much competitive cricket. As a result that Pakistan team performed more like an amateur dramatics society then seasoned professionals.

This series against India will be a different matter and I believe the Indian cast will take the applause and the adoration well before the curtain falls on the 5th and final act of this drama.

India go into this series without one of their leading men. Harbhajan Singh is missing due to injury and his place has gone to the young spinning all rounder Ravindra Jadeja who will partner Pragyan Ojha to form India's spin options. This is one department where Sri Lanka have the edge as their spin duo of Mendis and Murali are probably the best pairing in world cricket.

However, in the pace bowling department, Its India that unquestionably have the upper hand. Ishant Sharma, Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar and Irfan Pathan are a class above the Sri Lanka attack in the absence of Vaas and Malinga.

On the batting front, India again have the upper hand, especially with Gambhir, Sehwag and Raina having pleasant memories of their last visit here and with the Yuvraj, Tendulkar and Dhoni in top form too, it’s a formidable batting line-up.

Sri Lanka, whilst being ecstatic at the form at the top of the order of Dilshan, will be concerned at the relative slump in form of Jayawardne, Silva and Kapugedera. If the top 4 do not perform I can see Sri Lanka middle and late order struggling to post, or chase decent scores.

Four of the five games will be held on the batting friendly tracks of the two grounds in Colombo and I believe India's depth in batting could be the key to them posting some very big scores, or to chase up scores with relative ease.

Ok so what the bet?

As some famous person once said, “you could have knocked me down with a feather" when I saw India's price to win the series outright.

I fully expected them to be long odds on, but I am amazed to see them on offer at evens and I was even more surprised to see the value on offer in the series correct score market.

I believe the market is being heavily influenced by India's struggles against Mendis on their last tour here. Whilst that's understandable, it’s a massive overreaction as I believe India got to grips with him as that tour progressed and with time to reflect and work out strategies since then, I believe India will play him much better this time.

India should be long odds on to win this series, they are not. As ever, let’s not complain, let’s take advantage and therefore my suggested bets on this ODI series are:

In the Series Outright Market:

BACK India to win for 5 points @ 2.0 at Bluesq and 888Sport

In the Series Correct Score Market:

BACK India to win 5-0 for 1 Point @ 17.0 at Skybet
BACK India to win 4-1 for 1 Point @ 6.0 at Ladbrokes.

Join me and whilst we may not become Slumdog Millionaires, we could benefit from another Indian blockbuster performance.

Bigjoe