Fresh off a series win against the Indians, our boys kick their 2025 test calender off with a two test series against Sri Lanka in some of the most beautiful test cricket venues in the world.
It’s going to be an incredibly different XI to what we saw last hitout in Sydney. Skipper Pat Cummins is sitting out for the birth of his second child, Josh Hazelwood is resting up to hopefully be ready for the World Test Championship and with Sri Lankan conditions favouring spin bowling, cult hero Scotty Boland could end up running drinks.
Captain Steve Smith (yes you read that correctly) has hit work cut out for him selection wise, I’m just stoked we’ve got more red ball. I live for this shit.
The bookies at Ladbrokes have been working overtime ahead of this series, there’s plenty of markets for us to sink our teeth into.
I’ve trawled through Cricinfo, checked the weather and found a few markets that are calling my name.
Here is my preview of Sri Lanka v Australia.
Sri Lanka vs Australia
Thursday January 29 2:30pm, Galle International Cricket Stadium, Sri Lanka
My Predicted Australia XI
- U. Kwahaja
- S. Konstas
- M. Labuschagne
- S. Smith (C)
- T. Head
- B. Webster
- A. Carey (WK)
- M. Starc
- N. Lyon
- M. Kuhnemann
- S. Boland
Truth be told, there’s only a handful of people in the world that knows what our XI will look like for this first test and unfortunately, I am not one of them.
There’s a million question marks around this team;
What will our batting order look like?
Will the order be changed mid game like Travis Head allured to?
Will Sam Konstas miss out entirely?
Will we play three spinners?
Is Mitchell Starc healthy enough to be our only out and out pace bowler?
Just how much are we truly rotating this squad?
There’s a million questions that we won’t get answers too until the toss but if it was my job to pick this Test team (which it sadly isn’t despite all the emails I send Cricket Australia), I think that we should be treating this Sri Lankan side like any other test nation and playing our best possible XI.
Sure we have a few outs and the conditions do favour spin bowling over pace but I’m of the opinion that if we lean too much into that rather than picking our most talented players has the potential to get us stuck in a hole.
Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland are two of the best seamers in the world at the moment and picking three spinners really hamstrings our attack is the Sri Lankans start really scoring off them.
Beau Webster is still unproven as a bowler at this level just yet and I’d hate to see him have to shoulder a heap of responsibility if the spin bowling turns sour.
This is the perfect opportunity to blood Sammy Konstas in different conditions too, it sounds ridiculous to me that we’ve just picked him against India but then want to go away from him for Travis Head at the top who does his best work at five once the ball is softer and the fielders are hating cricket.
Stick with the openers, two spinners, two seamers, if Starc’s no good Sean Abbott deserves a baggy green.
Let’s not get too fruity with it.
Results Markets
The weather is always the best place to start when you’re looking at Test Cricket results and it looks like we might get some patchy rain on nearly every day of this Test.
Not enough to force a draw in my opinion but my meteorology knowledge doesn’t quite extend to the South Coast of Sri Lanka.
Australia at $1.91 is obviously the market I’m drawn to here, weather aside it’s clear that the boys are confident of getting a win here no matter who we put on the paddock and $1.91 seems like a great price for this Aussie Test Team
Australia to Win @ $1.91
Run Scorer Markets
Oh boy here I go sooking about not knowing the XI again.
In all fairness though, the question marks around the Australian selections give us a bit of value for the blokes who are absolutely locked in for a spot on the team sheet.
Travis Head and Steve Smith are the two I’m looking toward, Head is in career best form and I think we saw Steve Smith get back to that level we all expect from him over the summer.
The two are locked in as favourites for the top Australian runscorer markets and I lean towards Head in that one.
However Steve Smith over 38.5 1st innings runs is also a market I really like the look of.
They are the two markets that I will tip to you punters however I personally will also be having a play on Smith and Head to score 1st innings hundreds at $4.20 and $4.60 respectively.
Travis Head Top Australian 1st Innings Runscorer @ $4.50
Steve Smith over 38.5 1st Innings Runs @ $1.90
Steve Smith 1st Innings Century @ $4.20
Travis Head 1st Innings Century @ $4.60
Wicket Taker Markets
A significantly harder market to tip given how much the selections are up in the air but if the conditions favour spin as much as they keep saying, how can we not take Nathan Lyon here?
The only Aussie spinner we know is locked in for this first game, Nathan Lyon has 35 wickets in Sri Lanka at an average of 32.02 with two five wicket hauls.
Not the greatest stat line of all time but Gaz will be fresh after not bowling a heap over the summer and I expect him to see a lot of work here as our frontline spinner.
Nathan Lyon Top Australian 1st Innings Wickettaker @ $3.00