World Cup Cricket 2011: Sri Lanka A Hot Favourite For The Cup | Jayawardane Confident Of Performing Well In The Sub Continent

With the world cup nearing, its time to analyse the teams one by one and we shall be discussing the strengths and weaknesses of each teams. The world cup 2011's opening match is scheduled on 28th of february. 

Sri Lanka is a team to be considered in top 5 with their recent forms. They have managed 13 wins this year out of the 19 one day international matches they have played, in which one ended in a draw against New Zealand. The won the Tri Nation Tournament in Bangladesh, where India and Bangladesh were the other teams. They won the Zimbabwe tri nation tournament that featured India and Zimbabwe. Then there was the Asia Cup and Sri Lanka Tri Nation Series in which Sri Lanka put up a brilliant performance.

Strengths

The biggest strength in Sri Lanka cricket is its Team Coach John Dyson. The team has faith in its coach and the Captain. There are openers for Sri Lanka who can ba compared with the world class openers, such T. Dilshan, who can destroy any bowling attack with ease. This is followed by an array of world class cricketers such as Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardane, T Thushara and Herath. In the bowling department, there are MF Maharoof, Ajanta Mendis and much more. The team may not be much strong in papers when compared with that of India or Australia, but what makes them favourites for this world Cup is their team spirit, and not-to-give-up policy that often helps them coming back from behind. With many of the matches being there in Sri Lanka, Mendis can hope for turns on the pitch and he can be surely destructful.

Weaknesses

Sri Lanka relies too much on Sangakkara, Jayawardane and Mendis. Of course, there are openers who are successful, but their inconsistency worries them. Once their openers delivers consistently, the others who follow may not be havinf much pressure on them, and this can deliver better results. Also in the bowling, other than Mathews and Mendis, no other had been able to deliver constant results, but Mendis's high economy rate in most matches worries Sri Lanaka. T3BVYJJANZR8