Former champs in warm up battle

Chris Dhambarage

Two former champions Sri Lanka and the West Indies will battle it out in their final ICC 2011 World Cup warm up match under lights at the R. Premadasa Stadium today.

Both teams will take the field confidently after having won their opening World Cup warm up games quite convincingly. The Lankans had a fantastic start to their preparations with a huge 156 run victory over the Netherlands while West Indies outplayed Kenya by 61 runs at this same venue.

But this time the two teams are set to play their full side and obtain a psychological advantage before they set off for the glittering opening ceremony which will be staged in Dhaka, Bangladesh on Thursday.

Skipper Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardena are set to return back to the side after having been rested for their opening warm up match against the Netherlands on Saturday.

Sri Lanka of course managed to put up a huge total of 351 for 5 from their 50 overs despite the absence of both Sangakkara and Jayawardena. However this time the two most senior players in the Sri Lankan team are certain to make their appearance in this high profile encounter.

The West Indies will be looking to bounce back following their 2 nil series defeat against Sri Lanka recently. They had a good work out in their first warm up game against the Netherlands where they hammered 253 for 8 from their 50 overs before dismissing their opponents for 195 runs.

The key player in the West Indies line up will be middle order batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan who notched up a superb 123 in that outing.

The West Indies are without a win from their last eight one day internationals having notched up their last win against Ireland at Kingston in April. In contrast Sri Lanka has enjoyed a great amount of success in the recent past and has lost only six from their last 25 one day internationals since the start of 2010.

The teams:

Sri Lanka (from): Kumar Sangakkara (captain, Mahela Jayawardena, Tillekeratne Dilshan, Muttiah Muralitharan, Upul Tharanga, Thilan Samaraweera, Chamara Kapugedera, Angelo Mathews, Thisara Perera, Chamara Silva, Nuwan Kulasekera, Dilhara Fernando, Ajantha Mendis, Lasith Malinga and Rangana Herath.

West Indies (from): Darren Sammy (captain), Adrian Barath, Carlton Baugh, Sulieman Benn, Dwayne Bravo, Darren Bravo, Shivnarine Chnaderpaul, Chris Gayle, Nikita Miller, Kieran Pollard, Ravi Rampaul, Kemar Roach, Andre Russell, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Devon Smith.