Exciting final awaits cricket fans

Lahore, Nov 7: An exciting competition will be witnessed in final of the Golden Jubilee Quadrangular Floodlit Cricket Tournament between two evenly-balanced sides of South Africa and Sri Lanka at the Qadhafi Stadium on Saturday.

It has been reliably learnt that Sri Lanka management would play the same team which beat the West Indies and Pakistan sides during league matches in this tournament.

In a strange move, the Sri Lanka team has planned to open the bowling attack with a spinner. More interesting is the strategy to open the bowling with off-spinner Aravinda de Silva. It will be something amusing to see whether the plan of an off-spinner operating with the new ball succeeds or not. No doubt, the strong South African side is considered to be rather weak while playing the quality spin-bowling, but during the Test series against Pakistan and in this tournament, South African batsmen have been competently handling the spin bowling. That is whythe South African side has unbeaten record inthis competition. No one should be surprised if the South African team maintains its unblemished record and wins the tournament. But the Sri Lanka side is no "push-over"! Winning of toss has played very important role in this tournament. Team winning the toss likes to put the other side in to bat as it wants to avoid to bowl and field in the evening when dew makes gripping of ball by bowlers and catching or stopping the ball by fielders very difficult. However, South Africa is the only side which won two matches of the competition bowling in the evening. It had registered wins against Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The pitch looks full of runs. Most of the fans lost interest in the tournament after the ouster of Pakistan. The hard-fought last league match between South Africa and Sri Lanka was a very poorly-attended show despite the fact that game of the highest order was on display. But the final is expected to draw reasonable number of cricket-lovers. Many concessions have been announced by Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in tickets. That should also have a good effect on attendance in the final. South Africa 'on-the-tour' management committee had a meeting late on Friday evening and finalised the team for the all-important match of the tournament. Paceman Alan Donald has been brought into the side in place of thediminutive, unorthodox left-arm spinner Paul Adams. All the other players of the team which beat Sri Lanka on Thursday have been retained. Fielding of both the teams is superb. However, South Africa side enjoys a little edge in this particular department over the World Cup champions Sri Lanka, with acrobatic Jonty Rhodes outdoing all others. Fielding always plays important role in the one-day limited-over games.

The biggest advantage with the Sri Lanka side is that it has five all-rounders in Sanath Jayasuriya, Aravinda de Silva, Kumara Dharmasena, Chaminda Vaas and Captain Arjuna Ranatunga. That makes the Sri Lanka batting pretty strong and has brought variety in the bowling department. In spin department, Sri Lanka side enjoys edge over SouthAfrica. It has thee off-spinnersinMuttiah Muralitharan, Kumara Dharmasena and Aravinda de Silva. It has left-arm spinner Sanath Jayasuria.

South Africa side has much better pace-attack. It has Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Fannie de Villiers, Lance Klusener and Hansie Cronje. Sri Lanka side has to rely on Chaminda Vaas and Sajeeva de Silva only because Arjuna Ranatunga has not bowled during this tournament. Batting of the South Africa side is also good. Gary Kirsten has been scoring consistently and is a strong candidate for the "Man-of-the-Tournament" award. Lance Klusener, Pat Symcox and Hansie Cronje are also in fine nick. Daryll Cullanin, Jonty Rhodes, Dave Richardson and Andrew Hudson are too good batsmen to fail time and again.

Sri Lanka team enjoys slight advantage in batting when at full strength. Sanath Jayasuriya is an accomplished pinch-hitter now. Aravinda de Silva, Marvin Atapattu, Arjuna Ranatunga, Roshan Mahanama, Hashan Tillekeratne, Kumara Dharmasena, Lanka de Silva and Chaminda Vaas are all capable batsmen.

All in all, an interesting game is in the offing on Saturday. By beating Sri Lanka team in the league match, South Africa side is enjoying psychological advantage which can play very important role in the final. Moreover, South Africa side is galvanised and on winning spree. It can maintain its excellent record and win the tournament.

The two teams are: South Africa: Andrew Hudson, GaryKirsten,Lance Klusener, Daryll Cullanin, Captain Hansie Cronje, Jonty Rhodes, Shaun Pollock, Dave Richardson, Pat Symcox, Fannie de Villiers, Allan Donald.

Sri Lanka: Sanath Jayasuriya, Marvin Atapattu, Roshan Mahanama, Aravinda de Silva, Hishan Tillekeratne, Captain Arjuna Ranatunga, Lanka de Silva, Kumara Dharamasena, Chaminda Vaas, Sajeeva de Silva, Muttiah Muralitharan.

Umpires: Salim Badar and Javed Akhtar.

Reserve umpire: Athar Zaidi.

TV umpire: Muhammad Nazir Junior.

Referee: Ahmad Ibrahim.