India take on Sri Lanka in final today

After going at each other for the past two months, Sri Lanka and India clash at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium today, and if recent encounters are any clue, India are the favourites.
That’s not a tag they have ever been comfortable with. Finals of multi-team tournaments have long been India’s dreaded bogie, but against Sri Lanka there will at least be the comfort of familiarity – they have played each other 22 times in the last 19 months, with India winning 13 and losing seven times. Since MS Dhoni took over the leadership India have reached four finals and won two. Those two losses, against Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the summer of 2008, left a sour taste and India will be keen to impose their strength.
On the other hand, Kumar Sangakkara has only won one ODI series since he became captain in early 2009. Defeats to India in the home tri-series and the away tour must rankle, and his leadership has come under heavy fire of late.
A look back at the league phase, which ended on Monday with India comfortably handing Bangladesh their fourth loss in a row, indicates that neither they nor Sri Lanka had a tough time reaching this point. Both batting line-ups are in form, the fielding has improved significantly from when they played each other in December, but it is the bowling which is still a concern. No frontline fast bowler from either side has averaged less than 5.38 runs an over or 31.20 per wicket, and the most successful bowler overall has been the allrounder Thissara Perera, whose five wickets have come at 18.20 and 4.33 an over.
Inaccurate bowling at the start and during the death overs hampered both India and Sri Lanka in the limited-overs series before the New Year. India’s fast bowlers were lukewarm in their first two games of this series, failing to defend a total of 279 against Sri Lanka and allowing Bangladesh to post 296 after that.
The rookie Sudeep Tyagi has impressed in two games but is not a certainty for the final, Sreesanth has been wayward and expensive, and most of the responsibility has been shouldered by Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra. Both have had more off days than good ones.
The situation is even more worrying for Sri Lanka. Apart from Chanaka Welegedara’s five-wicket haul in the first game against India, no pace bowler has been impressive, and the pick of the attack has been the young offspinner, Suraj Randiv.
Their two most experienced bowlers, Nuwan Kulasekara and Thilan Thushara, have been poor and Suranga Lakmal all over the place. Too much pressure has been put on Randiv and Perera, and neither can be expected to carry Sri Lanka’s attack.
After Sri Lanka’s defeat on Sunday, Sangakkara admitted that the result had robbed them of some momentum going into the final. The mantra for this series has been simple – field first. With that in mind, the bowling will have to be extremely proficient.
India: (probable) 1 Virender Sehwag, 2 Gautam Gambhir, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 MS Dhoni (capt/wk), 6 Suresh Raina, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Zaheer Khan, 10 Ashish Nehra, 10 Sreesanth/Sudeep Tyagi.
Sri Lanka: (probable) 1 Upul Tharanga, 2 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 3 Kumar Sangakkara (capt./wk), 4 Mahela Jayawardene, 5 Thilan Samaraweera, 6 Thilina Kandamby, 7 Thissara Perera, 8 Suraj Randiv, 9 Nuwan Kulasekara, 10 Thilan Thushara, 11 Chanaka Welegedara. – Source