INDIA-SRI LANKA SERIES:PREVIEW

India will play first ODI of the 5 match ODI Series against Sri Lanka at Rangiri stadium,Dambulla on 28th january. They beat England 5-0 in November 2008 and had an impressive 3-2 series win in Sri Lanka.
India were clueless against the mysterious of Muttiah Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis in the Test series last year, but tackled them well in the ODI Series.
Sri Lanka have won six of their last seven ODI series,but not convincingly.The batting struggled against Zimbabwe and they lost a match to Bangladesh recently.But the excellant series win against Pakistan in pakistan will provide them a good confidence against India.
Nuwan Kulasekara had a fantastic 2008 in ODI cricket. Kulasekara has become Sri Lanka's premier quick bowler in this format. he was really successfull against india.
When India toured Sri Lanka last, Mahendra Singh Dhoni had a difficult time with Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar absent and the top order struggling. Dhoni and Suresh Raina had to do almost all work.But this time Indian team looks much stronger side, with Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar both fit.
Ajantha Mendis, who recently became the quickest bowler to take 50 ODI wickets.But Pakistan's batsmen handled him efficiently. On the favourable home pitches, Mendis will always be a factor. Sachin Tendulkar has never faced Mendis in an ODI. Injury ruled him out of the last contest in Sri Lanka but his return will boost India's top order.
Teams:(prabable)
Sri Lanka
1 Sanath Jayasuriya, 2 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 3 Kumar Sangakkara (wk), 4 Mahela Jayawardene (capt),5 Thilina Kandamby,6 Chamara Kapugedera, 7 Thilan Thushara, 8 Farveez Maharoof, 9 Nuwan Kulasekara, 10 Muttiah Muralitharan, 11 Ajantha Mendis
India
1 Virender Sehwag, 2 Sachin Tendulkar, 3 Gautam Gambhir, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Suresh Raina/Rohit Sharma, 6 Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt/wk), 7 Yusuf Pathan, 8 Praveen Kumar/Pragyan Ojha, 9 Zaheer Khan, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 Munaf Patel.

Pitch & conditions
The captains expect a seaming pitch. That's why India's strategy is to play as many as four seamers. The weather is likely to be clear. The team winning the toss might want to bowl first.

Stats
-Sri Lanka at Rangiri stadium ,Dambulla
matches 20
won 14
-India at Rangiri stadium,Dambulla
matches 7
won 3
but India have only won one of five games against Sri Lanka.

Records are likely to be broken:
-Murali, who has taken 500 wickets, need three more to go past Wasim Akram, the highest wicket-taker in ODIs.