India look to wrap things up

India cruised to victory over Sri Lanka in the third-one-day international on Monday and now lead the series 2-1 going into the penultimate match in Kolkata, to be played on Chrismas Eve.

The way Sri Lanka collapsed from a strong position when batting first last time out does not bode well for their chances of squaring the series - the mental side appears to be lacking, which is hardly surprising at this stage of the tour.

India, already without the suspended MS Dhoni, their captain, will be hampered by the loss of Yuvraj Singh, whose injury nightmare continued as he picked up a finger injury in the most recent win. However, India coped well enough without him earlier on and should be able to win again to clinch a series win before Christmas.

Bet365 make India 1/6 to win the series from here, which you can't really argue about, while Sri Lanka are 7/2 to win both the remaining games, on Christmas Eve and December 27. It's asking an awful lot. India are 8/11 to win the match itself - not a bad price - and Sri Lanka can be backed at 11/10.

Original series preview
For all their excellent Test form, India have not been hitting the heights in one-day cricket of late, going back to the World Cup when they made a disappointing early exit. Sri Lanka can beat anyone on their day and they have the extra motivation of a bit of revenge.

Having said that, India have won 10 and lost just two one-dayers at home against Sri Lanka in the last decade and home advantage, as always, is a massive advantage in these encounters.

Bet365 make India 4/7 to win the series and Sri Lanka 11/8, which is about right, even if I have my reservations about India at the moment, in this format.

The loss of Sreesanth through suspected swine flu, and Yuvraj (for the first match, probably) are blows, but they do have Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh back on a one-day field for the first time in a while. Those two will be key players in the series, for strike power at the top and control and wicket-taking ability later on.

Sri Lanka are still easing Muttiah Muralitharan back to full fitness but you can never write him off, while they still have enough variety to cause India problems. Getting a good start to the series is likely to be more important for them, because it's always more difficult to recover when you're on tour than it is at home.

In the correct score markets, a 3-2 win for India is the favourite, at 15/8, while a win for Sri Lanka by the same score is 5/2 and a 4-1 win for India is on offer at 3/1. It's 7/1 that Sri Lanka win it 4-1, 9/1 that India complete a 5-0 whitewash and 25/1 that the tourists whitewash the home side.

Batting heroes
Most of the pitches in India over the past month have been great to bat on so the batsmen will be looking forward to this, if a little reticent because of the extra pressure to succeed.

The swashbuckling Virender Sehwag is favourite to be India's top runscorer in the series at 5/2, just ahead of Sachin Tendulkar at 11/4 and Gautam Gambhir at 3/1. Since they occupy the first three spots in the order, they have the most chance in terms of time at the crease.

Behind them, Yuvraj, who seems certain to miss the opener, is 11/2, with captain MS Dhoni 6/1 and Suresh Raina 8/1,

For Sri Lanka, captain Kumar Sangakkara is 12/5 favourite and after a couple of good knocks in the Twenty20 matches, he should go in with plenty of confidence. Tillekeratne Dilshan is 3/1, with Mahela Jayawardene 9/2 and Upul Tharanga 11/2. Old warhorse Sanath Jayasuriya is 7/1 and Thilan Samawareera is 15/2.

India have shown more vulnerability in this form of the game than you would expect of late but I have to say that they should still come out on top and 4/7 is not a terrible price. If I had to pick a correct score, I'd go for 4-1 to the home side, but it's always a tough proposition.