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THIRD EYE

Hit them at their weakest

Atique Anam
England have finally got their World Cup campaign off the mark. After two heavy defeats, the English managed to thwart the Scottish challenge with a 119-run victory.
No matter how emphatic the scorecard may read for the English, it was hardly a convincing performance from them. Apart from Moeen Ali, none of the batters looked in command, including the great Ian Bell. The veteran's painstaking 85-ball 54, which featured only two boundaries, failed to complement Ali's fluent batting, even though the partnership yielded a record 172 runs. As soon as Ali departed, a mini collapse followed, reducing the Three Lions from 201 for one to 203 for 4. That only showed how vulnerable the English batting has been in this tournament. Eventually England managed only 303 runs from their 50 overs, adding just 100 in the last 15.
On the bowling front, England's two key weapons -James Anderson and Stuart Broad - have been off-colour so far. Anderson's two wickets in three matches have come at an economy rate of 6.33 while Broad has given away 7.2 runs per over for his two wickets in three matches.
And that is all good news for Bangladesh, who England will be facing at the Adelaide Oval on March 9. Many feel that this low-on-confidence England side could be the ideal prey for the Tigers. The Tigers' approach should be — whether they get to bowl first or bat - an attacking one, and that will set the cat amongst the pigeons for these relatively inexperienced England players.
The immediate next opponents for the Tigers, though, are Sri Lanka at the MCG on Thursday. The islanders were completely outplayed by New Zealand in their opening match before managing a nervous four-wicket victory against Afghanistan on Sunday, having made heavy weather ofa233-run chase.
The Lankans have depth in their batting and variation in their bowling. But it doesn't look like all the players are in the best of form. The wrecker-in-chief, Lasith Malinga, was taken apart by the Kiwi batsmen in the opening match for staggering figures of none for 84. The veteran did redeem himself slightly by taking three wickets against the Afghans, but those wickets came in his third and fourth spells when the batsmen were looking to go bonkers in a bid to up the tempo. Their second-most experienced pacer Nuwan Kulasekara was not even considered for the match after the heavy battering by the Kiwis. Their best spinner, Rangana Herath, has accounted for only two wickets in two matches at an economy rate of 4.1.
So there are visible chinks in the Lankan armoury and the Tigers need to notice them and hit those vulnerable points. For their own game, the Tigers will need to be more aggressive and more keen on rotating the strike and converting singles into twos and twos into threes - there will be a lot of those on offer at the mammoth ground that is MCG — rather
than looking for boundaries all the time.
The Tigers will, in all likelihood, need two more scalps to ensure their quarterfinals berth, unless one or more upsets change the scenario completely. They have four games in hand - against Sri Lanka, Scotland, England and New Zealand as per the schedule — and two wins in their next three matches do not at all look unlikely at the moment.