India vs Sri Lanka Prediction: Samson to flex his muscles at 8/1

Jamie Pacheco previews the India v Sri Lanka IT20 match played at this year's Asia Cup, played in Dubai on Friday, with a start time of 15:30 and live on TNT Sports.  

Jamie is sticking with Tilak Varma again and also has good reasons to side with Sanju Samson, whereas the ever-consistent Axar Patel could be in business with the ball. You can check out his India vs Sri Lanka Predictions below...

*You can check out the Cricket Odds from all of our Cricket Betting markets over on betfred.com

India  

Being India IT20 skipper must be a pretty cool job these days. 

Sky Yadav knows it's virtually impossible to beat his team here in the UAE, so he can go through as many experiments as he wants.  They seem to have been preparing for the final from the very first match.

Against Bangladesh batting first, he decided that Shivam Dube and Hardik Pandya needed some time in the middle, so both were promoted to numbers three and five respectively. Dube got just 2, Pandya was good for his 38 off 29. Abishek Sharma got past 70 for the second match in a row.  

168 wasn't the greatest of scores but against a team with a serious inferiority complex when it comes to playing India, it was more than enough.  

Kuldeep Yadav, who we backed for top bowler honours in the two previous games, took 3-18 to win the Top India bowler betting heat. It hasn't been an easy tournament for us.  

As ever when faced with a dead rubber, India will be tempted to rest golden boy Jasprit Bumrah with Arshdeep Singh his likely replacement. It's unlikely there will be any other changes, though Sky may decide to shuffle up the batting order again. More on that later.  

Sri Lanka  

I've always been a big believer that most of the best cricket games are the low-scoring ones.  

And Pakistan v Sri Lanka was a good example of that. The latter crawled to 133/8 mostly on the back of a fighting 50 off 44 from Kamindu Mendis. 

Now, if you thought that meant it was going to be a walk in the park for Pakistan, you'd be wrong.  Pakistan were 80-5 at one stage with plenty of work to do after spinners Maheesh Theekshana and Wanindu Hasaranga combined to take two wickets each for not many runs. One more wicket and they would have been favourites.  

But Pakistan's middle-order got there comfortably in the end after one match-winning partnership and Sri Lanka will have realised that in the end, they were a good 25-30 runs short, despite an impressive effort with the ball.  

With Pakistan vs Bangladesh being played on Thursday, meaning one of those two will get to four points when Charith Asalanka's are on 0 after two, and it's pretty obvious to all that the 2022 champions can't make the final from here.  

But they'll do the best they can here. Janith Liyanage might get a game at last.  

Pitch and conditions. 

Dubai has proved to be an interesting ground so far this tournament.  

There's a historic bias for chasing here because of the dew, but in a competition with few upsets, the trend has been far simpler: the favourite has generally won here.  

But this is a fair wicket with a little bit of swing for the first four to five overs, some spin and some big boundaries, so anything between 150 and 170 and you're never ahead of the game, nor out of it, at the halfway mark.  

Sri Lanka generally prefer to chase, but they don't want to be chasing more than 165 here against this lot.  

Match Winner odds 

Rather than thinking this will be the usual stroll for India, I'm thinking this may actually be the best chance of a proper upset here.  

A Sri Lanka side with absolutely no pressure on them at all can be dangerous and you'd think that on the balance of probability, one of these days, India will have a bad day at the office.  

Then again, India have won 21 times against Sri Lanka's 9 in T20Is, including five of the last six, so it's one thing coming close, it's quite another to win the game.  

So as tempted as I am about the 9/2 on Sri Lanka, implied probability of 18.2%, I'll leave it alone.  

*For all the latest and live India vs Sri Lanka Odds then head over to betfred.com 

Top Indian Batsman

I've been keeping a close eye on India's batting order these last few matches. In the absence of any sort of real challenge from the opposition, Sky and the management have decided to play the same opening partnership of Abishek Sharma and Shubman Gill but…after that you never really know who's coming in and in what order. That's in line with what I said at the start about India being in experimental mode all the way through.   

So we can expect the Gill/Sharma partnership to remain and of course, one or both have every chance to get to at least 50. If they do, it could be game over for us, but such are the risks of playing these markets. Then again, they're both short enough.  

If India stick to the strategy of rotating who comes in at 3-5, you'd think that it's Sanju Samson's turn to get a promotion. He won the only time he batted at three with 56 against Oman and given he didn't bat at all against Bangladesh, Pakistan or the UAE, Sky may decide to give him some more time at the crease ahead of the final. If he does, 8/1 is a great price.  

Following the same theory, Tilak Varma (and us) can feel a bit hard-done by him only coming in at six on Wednesday. Sky may feel he needs some batting practice in a proper match too, so we'll stick with him again, as well, and play half a point on each.  

Top India Bowler

Axar Patel was another who was up for consideration for top bat at 28/1(!) but if it's already a bit of a gamble to hope Samson gets a promotion, the same could be said of Axar, who of course doesn't have the same ability with the bat, as Samson does.  

But I'll back him with the ball, instead. Four wickets in five games at the Asia Cup isn't a great return by his standards, especially when you consider Kuldeep has 12. But Axar generally gets his four overs in and one of these days his simple and effective left-arm orthodox will get better results. Apart from anything else, he's 5/1 to Kuldeep's 13/5, while I have a sneaky feeling that the great Bumrah might be rested again here.  

Jamie Pacheco Cricket P/L 2025: 

• Points Staked: 106.5 
• Points Returned: 96.25 
• Current P/L: -9.75