Sri Lanka huge favourites - unsurprisingly

Sanath Jayasuriya and his Sri Lankan team-mates will be expecting a comfortable series win over Bangladesh © Getty Images

The population of the UK may beg to differ, but there is international cricket going on elsewhere in the world and Sri Lanka and Bangladesh begin their Test series on Monday in Colombo. Needless to say, the Sri Lankans will be big favourites, not just because they are at home but also because Bangladesh, despite all their improvement in the last couple of years, are still a second-class side.

Though Sri Lanka have won just seven of their past 20 Tests and lost six, they will go into the series full of confidence having beaten West Indies 2-0 in their last outing. That was at home, and on their own soil they are a formidable outfit. In their last 20 matches in Sri Lanka they have won 12 of them, drawn three and lost just five. In contrast, Bangladesh have still won just once in 38 Tests and away from home, they really struggle, having lost 19 and drawn just two of their 21 Test matches.

The Sri Lankan batsmen should be licking their lips at the prospect of facing a weak Bangladesh attack. Of the current line-up, Marvan Atapattu, Mahela Jayawardene and Sanath Jayasuriya have all hit big hundreds against Bangladesh in the past and considering that they have all done that against far better bowling attacks, then you'd expect them to make hay this time round in what's a two match series.Mohammad Ashraful is the only Bangladesh player to have hit a century against Sri Lanka and the talented batsman showed enough in the tour to England this summer to suggest that he could repeat that feat if he gets the chance.

However, the way Sri Lanka steamrolled Bangladesh in the three-match one-day series between the two sides does not bode well for the touring side and if bet365 offer anything like 1/2 (1.50) for Sri Lanka to win 2-0, then that would be well worth taking.