Preview - SA SL 1st ODI Paarl 11/12

This is a bit of the battle of the unknowns here.

There have only been a handful of matches at Paarl. There have only been two matches between South Africa and Sri Lanka in the last 5 years. Both teams are somewhat unpredictable, and Sri Lanka are likely to have a vastly different line up to the test matches.

So it is hard to make too many predictions really.

However there are a couple of things to look for.

1. Dilshan hit 58 and 106 in his last two innings against South Africa. He is under some scrutiny as captain and needs a score. Will this be his time?

2. De Villiers is likely to bat at 4, keep wickets and captain his team. Dhoni and Sangakkara both proved that it is possible to succeed while keeping, captaining and batting in the top 5, but Gilchrist, Germon, Taibu and Flower all struggled with the excessive workload. De Villiers is certainly a talented batsman, but so were Gilchrist and Flower. It will be interesting to see if he can hold it all together.

3. Ajantha Mendis is likely to make a return. He's only bowled 7 overs against South Africa in any form of cricket, but he took 3 for 30 in those 7 overs, picking up Smith, Kallis and Duminy. If he can repeat this then Sri Lanka are in with a big show.

4. Lasith Malinga is playing his 100th ODI match. He has played 4 ODI matches against South Africa and taken 10 wickets, roughly one wicket every 3 overs. He is always an interesting bowler to watch, and it will be good to see how he goes in this match.

5. JP Duminy looking to get on the board. Duminy's last 4 ODI innings against Sri Lanka have been 3(3), 0(2), 0(1) & 0(1). He has faced 7 deliveries scored 3 runs and been out 4 times. However his last outing at Paarl was him guiding the Cape Cobras to a win with 52* at the end of a match, so he may be in a good space to turn that round.

Some betting tips.

In the three matches that have been played at Paarl between big teams, there have been 2 century opening partnerships and one 50 opening partnership. The 2nd wicket has been even more productive. If you are looking to be over on any batsman, make sure they are in the top three. Likewise don't think the game is over just because one team has a good start. Most teams get off to a good start at this ground.

Contributions made by openers

In a couple of previous posts, Partnerships that made big contributions" and A different kind of hundred partnership I looked at a different way of measuring the impact of a partnership.

I used the method from the contributions post to look at opening partnerships in this world cup. There have been a couple of outstanding partnerships this time round, not least of which was the innings by Dilshan and Tharanga of 282 vs Zimbabwe at Pallekele.

Here is the list of all partnerships that contributed 100 or more:

Names	For	Against	Runs	Contribution
TM Dilshan, WU Tharanga	SL	vs Zimbabwe	282	307
BJ Haddin, SR Watson	Aus	vs Canada	183	246
WTS Porterfield, PR Stirling	Ire	vs Netherlands	177	241
MJ Guptill, BB McCullum	NZ	vs Zimbabwe	166	217
V Sehwag, SR Tendulkar	India	vs South Africa	142	201
BJ Haddin, SR Watson	Aus	vs New Zealand	133	189
Kamran Akmal, Mohammad Hafeez	Pak	vs West Indies	113	180
RW Chakabva, BRM Taylor	Zim	vs Sri Lanka	116	165
KP Pietersen, AJ Strauss	Eng	vs Netherlands	105	149
CH Gayle, DS Smith	WI	vs Netherlands	100	141
HM Amla, GC Smith	SA	vs Bangladesh	98	139
MJ Guptill, BB McCullum	NZ	vs Kenya	72	139
KP Pietersen, AJ Strauss	Eng	vs Ireland	91	125
S Chanderpaul, DS Smith	WI	vs Ireland	89	124
TM Dilshan, WU Tharanga	SL	vs Pakistan	76	105

A couple of names appear there more than once. Dilshan & Tharanga, Haddin & Watson, Guptil & McCullum and, despite often looking as comfortable as a pin in the bottom, Devon Smith.

That leads to the next obvious question: Which country has got the most value from their openers. Here's the list sorted by country and average contribution. (for this average I am dividing by innings, not dismissals, as there is already a bonus for getting a not out)

Team	Contribution
Aus	104.33
SL	99.00
NZ	78.17
Eng	75.50
India	68.29
SA	62.67
WI	57.14
Ire	45.00
Zim	38.00
Ban	31.67
Neth	27.14
Kenya	11.83
Can	10.00

There's some obvious distortion in these numbers caused by the ability of some teams at minnow bashing. The usual suspects for beating up on minnows (NZ, SA, India and SL) all feature high on the chart. I will at some point produce a table that removes games against lesser teams, but the pub is calling.

Happy World Cup watching everyone.