Aussies and Sri Lanka in battle of the pacemen

Reuters: A battle for supremacy between bouncers and yorkers may eventually decide the outcome of Saturday’s World Cup Group A showdown between Australia and Sri Lanka in Colombo.

On spin-friendly conditions in Sri Lanka, it might sound surprising that pace will rule but going by current form and team composition, it may well turn out to be so in a re-run of the 2007 final won by Australia.

The champions, chasing their fifth World Cup title overall, have not tried to mask their intentions and have unleashed their pace battery of Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson and Shaun Tait on opposition batsmen.

The pace trio have used the short-pitched delivery with precise direction and a lot of fire, hitting many a batsman on the body and the helmet thus gaining the mental edge.

In both their matches, against Zimbabwe and New Zealand, the pacemen removed the sting in the opposition batting early and ensured that there was no chance of a late fightback either.

The early strikes from the faster men have allowed the Australian slow bowlers to breathe easy in the tournament so far.

The Australian spinners have bagged just four wickets in the two matches and have got away with that due to the red hot form of their faster counterparts.

Co-hosts Sri Lanka, on paper, have a more balanced attack with some smart spin bowling from Muttiah Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis, if he plays, backing up pacemen Lasith Malinga and Nuwan Kulasekara.

But it will be Malinga’s slinging toe-crushers that Australia will be wary off.

The colourful fast bowler missed the first two matches of the World Cup due to a sore back, against Canada and Pakistan, and came back sizzling against outclassed Kenya grabbing six wickets, including a hat-trick.

Malinga has a great knack of churning out inswinging yorkers at will and he has made a habit of taking wickets in bunches.

While Sri Lanka will look to the wily Muralitharan to make life difficult for the batsmen during the middle overs, captain Kumar Sangakkara will use Malinga mostly during the powerplays to inflict crucial blows.

The Sri Lankan batting will once again rely heavily on the experienced Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene for stability and they will have to ensure that the lower middle order is not exposed too soon to the new ball.

Sri Lanka v Australia quotebox - how the skippers see it

Australia and Sri Lanka, the pre-tournament favourites to top World Cup Group A, meet on Saturday. Here is how the captains see the long-awaited encounter with quotes taken from a Friday news conference:

Ricky Ponting, captain, Australia:

How much are you concentrating on counter-acting dangerous fast bowler Lasith Malinga?

"We have played a fair bit against Malinga over the years. Obviously he had a great game the other day against Kenya (he collected a hat-trick). Looks like he is in pretty good form. Yes, he was one of the main focuses for us in the team meeting."

How do you deal with him?

"We must make sure when he comes on in those middle overs we don't let him take wickets and have the impact he had on the game the other night (against Kenya).

"But by the same token we cannot just afford to focus on one of their bowlers. There are few other world class bowlers in their team we need to focus on as well."

Does Pakistan defeat for Sri Lanka mean they are less of a threat to your team?

"Although they lost that one game to Pakistan I don't think anything changes at all. They are a well skilled, well drilled team and I think everything points in the direction of a really good game of cricket tomorrow."

Kumar Sangakkara, captain, Sri Lanka:

On playing all three of their spinners:

"We are going to have a chat at training today and see if that is the best way -- we have got three great spinners and we have part time spinners so we will make a decision on that."

Problems facing champions Australia:

"The real strength of the Australia is the pace. They have four quality pace bowlers and they will probably come out at us pretty hard. We'll have to absorb that."

Do Sri Lanka believe they can win after losing to Pakistan?

"The key thing is our attitude -- the way we look at the Aussies and believe that we are going to beat them. That is even more important than technical changes we make."

Fitness worries?

"Angelo Mathews (all-rounder) was injured but now he is fit -- our balance has increased."