** Official ** Sri Lanka in New Zealand tour

[southern man]

But they continue to give the South island hardly any cricket, when we have the best pitches in the country.

 

[Kent]

Hmm, when was the last time Canterbury or Otago got an international warmup game? I'd be interested to find out.

Sri Lanka 'A' obviously doesn't count...

 

[Tim]

Most international matches usually start at Eden Park or Hamilton now so I guess they can't see the point of sending a side all the way down to Christchurch or Dunedin to play a warm-up & then send them back up again to Auckland.

Oram blazing away at the moment...69* off 68 balls..C.D have rescued their innings to 164/3

It's a shame Taylor couldn't keep going because it looked as though he was heading to a very good score.

 

[shaka]

218/7 highest score by Oram 74 (78).

 

[bryce]

ewen thompson also hit 30* off 19 balls, nuwan zoysa left the ground due to being struck on the hand from a ball that flew off thompson's bat, there was also a brief interval for rain before the 48th over ended aswell which means it may come back.
yeah i've noticed that most years a country is touring NZ hamilton gets a warm up match between ND and the touring side

 

[Tim]

I don't think Sri Lanka will be entirely happy with that bowling performance considering there was a bigger advantage bowling first.

Only Zoysa & Kulesekara returned good figures on a helpful pitch..although Sri Lanka did use quite a few spinners. I don't think they'll get away with that when they play NZ though.

 

[bryce]

i think they were more experimenting with players, i don't think they will approach the ODI's the same way

 

[Dasa]

Will Murali be playing in the Tests in this series?
I just realised that if he were to take 10 wickets in a match in one of the Tests, he would be the first bowler to have a 10 wicket match against all Test nations!

 

[bryce]

yeah he will most probaly be playing the tests but missing the odi's

 

[dinu23]

can anyone in NZ tell me how the weather is around the grounds that SL are going to play. b'cause i've been waiting over a month for this tour, and i hope the matches won't get washed away.

 

[Richard Rash]

Sh1t weather everywhere

 

[Tim]

Weather is still a mixed bag this week, but apparently heading into the new year we should get some finer patches.

 

[Tim]

If you want live coverage of Sri Lanka's match v Northern Districts, head to www.blackcaps.co.nz. It's a brand new site by the NZC & it looks very good.

 

[Richard Rash]

Looks great..They should do ball by ball commentary similar to cricinfo though

 

[Tim]

I find it interesting that both NZ & Australia have pulled their live domestic coverage from Cricinfo....

 

[Richard Rash]

Yeah i wonder why? So what are everyones predictions for the tour. I think both the ODI's and tests will be tightly contested and the final results will be harder to pick than a broken nose however i think the ODI's will be 2 all going into the final match and am picking a drawn test series

 

[Tim]

ODI's, im going to pick NZ 3-2.
And im going to pick NZ to win the test series 1-0.

That may seem slightly optimistic..but I feel NZ will come out a lot tougher after the thumping in Australia.

 

[Richard Rash]

ODI's, im going to pick NZ 3-2.
And im going to pick NZ to win the test series 1-0.

That may seem slightly optimistic..but I feel NZ will come out a lot tougher after the thumping in Australia.

Yeah i think the batting will be fine.. but i am still fairly pesamistic regarding our ability to take wickets in test matches. Hopefully Tuffy comes back and brings some form with him

 

[Tim]

At a guess I think NZ have only lost 3 of their last 12 or 13 ODI series at home..and you get the feeling that NZ are currently enjoying their best ever ODI form. I think we'll have enough to get over the line against a pretty good Sri Lankan ODI side.

 

[Tim]

I feel that Sri Lanka probably have a better chance than anyone to win here. Their pace attack is mainly made up of medium pace seam or swing bowlers. You only have to look at bowlers like Michael Mason & James Franklin in our conditions to know that the Sri Lankan bowlers will enjoy it here.