Asia Cup: Pride at stake for India

When India take on Sri Lanka (again!!) in the finals of Asia Cup 2010 on Thursday, they get a chance to break yet another jinx. This time, India face the uphill task of winning the Asia cup after 15 long years. Four time champion India last won an Asia cup way back in 1995 at Sharjah beating Sri Lanka by 8 wickets. Since then India have reached final on 3 occasions (1997, 2004,2008) and on all occasions lost to Sri Lanka. Now, this match offers India a chance to redeem their pride after Zimbabwe humiliation and get a sweet revenge against the island nation.

(An interesting stat: This Asia Cup final will be the 3001^st One Day International overall and interestingly the 1995 Asia Cup final which India won was the 999^th ODI.)

Natwest Trophy 2002 is one of the only finals India have won this decade

India usually have been very poor in tournament finals (involving 3 or more nations). Since 2000, India have played 22 finals winning 4, losing 15 with 3 ending in no result.

Looking at the recent form of the two teams, not much can be said as these teams have played each other quite frequently and know the strength and weaknesses of their opponents very well. Lets take a look at some of the stats which will give a better idea about how these two teams stand against each other.

• This year, the two teams have faced off each other on 6 occasions with India on the losing side in 4 of them.
• In tournament finals (involving more than 2 teams), India have gone head to head against Sri Lanka 15 times, emerging victorious on 6 occasions, losing in 7 and no result in 2 of them (both at champions trophy 02)
• But, the last 10 years portrays a dismal picture. Starting 2000, India have won just a single final against Sri Lanka, lost as many as 6 of them, whereas 2 were washed off.

Lights have been in question throughout the tournament and so toss will play an important role, as no team would like to chase under lights. So its as simple as that, win the toss bat first.

Team News: After a thumping victory against India in the dead rubber, Sri Lanka are high on confidence. Murali, Malinga, Samarweera are expected to be back after being rested.

India on the other hand will try to forget the defeat and start afresh. Harbhajan and Nehra will be back in the playing XI.

Expected team:

India: Gambhir, Karthik, Kohli, Dhoni, Raina, Sharma, Jadeja, Harbhajan, Praveen, Nehra and Zaheer.

Sri Lanka: Tharanga, Dilshan, Sangakkara, Jayawardene, Samaraweera, Matthews, Kapugedera, Maharoof, Murali, Malinga, Kulasekara.