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Australia turn attention to Sri Lanka

02/09/2012 04:05:04 AM

After dominating India for most of the summer, Australia gets a new opponent on Friday when they take on Sri Lanka in the Commonwealth Bank Series at the WACA Ground.

Last year's one-day international World Cup runners-up arrived in Australia in a period of turmoil, having just sacked coach Geoff Marsh and appointed a new captain, and made a disappointing start to the tri-series with a four-wicket loss to India on Wednesday.

Australia enters the third match of the tournament high on confidence following their 4-0 Test series whitewash and their 65-run thrashing of India in the first 50-over game.

Wicketkeeper Matthew Wade starred in that encounter with 67 off 69 balls, while David Hussey added a quick-fire 61.

Australian coach Mickey Arthur said the strong performances of the players who came into the side had left him with a selection headache for Friday.

"Nobody wants to rest, which is great," he said.

"The guys want to keep playing and they realise we are starting to develop a really good talent pool now and they don't want to go out of the team."

Despite that, Arthur said Australia are likely to find a way to give middle-order batsman Peter Forrest his international debut on the back of his impressive domestic form for Queensland.

The hosts are expected to retain the same bowling attack from the India match, though, with recalled seamer Ben Hilfenhaus on stand-by.

Sri Lanka opted for a bowling line-up dominated by pace in Graham Ford's first game as coach, but the likes of Lasith Malinga, Nuwan Kulasekara and Angelo Mathews couldn't defend a modest target of 234.

New captain Mahela Jayawardene was happy with the bowling effort against India though and said his batsmen needed to perform better for his team to have a chance against Australia.

Jayawardene identified Australia's attack as an area Sri Lanka could exploit.

"Right now I think their bowling [is their weakness]," he said.

"(Ryan) Harris is coming back after injury and he's a decent bowler but I think they're still missing quite a few front-line guys so that's an area which we can target."

The defeat to India continued Sri Lanka's woes at the WACA, where they've lost their past eight ODIs and won just twice in 16 attempts overall.

Sri Lanka have also won only 20 of their 84 matches in Australia in the 50-over format.

 
Photograph Copyright : Getty Images

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