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Confident Lankans get busy fine tuning
Channaka de Silva reporting from England
Confident Sri Lanka cricketers are fine tuning themselves here in London for their first outing in the Champions Trophy cricket tournament against a troubled Zimbabwe side on Tuesday.

Zimbabwe who entered the tournament amidst their domestic chaos caused by the exodus of almost all of their top players were not expected to go beyond the first round under their 20 year old captain Tatenda Taibu. They were thrashed by England at Edgbaston yesterday in the tournament curtain raiser that was stretched to two days by rain.

However their main worry must be a defeat by cricket minnows United States who successfully chased Zimbabwe's total of 270 for 8 in a warm up game. If anyone thought that the United States possessed an extraordinary talent to beat an established test nation, it was soon wiped out by a massive thrashing the US received in their opening fixture against New Zealand by 210 runs. In the match that was played on Friday New Zealand made 347 while US managed only 137 in reply.

So a comparative study of the US performance against Zimbabwe and New Zealand would give a clear idea on the standard of Zimbabwe while Sri Lanka also comes into the equation with their victory over New Zealand in another warm up game played at Henley on Tuesday.

It was not a very convincing win which was only managed by a margin of just 11 runs, but it should serve immensely to boost the confidence of the Lankans who are on a high at the moment and wouldn't want it be dented by a hiccup.

The failure of the Sri Lankan batting's top order in that match however should be a great worry to the team that has seen a deluge of excellent performances by the batsmen since lately. After scoring a mere 171, the victory was achieved only thanks to a brilliant spell of bowling by leg spinner Upul Chandana who grabbed 3 wickets for 14, when New Zealand were cruising to victory.

"I'm not overly concerned about the result against Sri Lanka, because it was a very informal match. Sri Lanka played all 14 of their squad members and we just played 11, and the pitch conditions weren't too flash either." New Zealand coach John Bracewell summed up after the match.

"It was like the North East Valley club pitch," Bracewell said in a reference to his former playing days in Dunedin. The Sri Lankans actually turned it square and made it almost impossible for us later on, but we had plenty to take out of the game." He added.

Bracewell immediately spotted the chink in Sri Lanka's batting armour and commented "I doubt that either side would have been happy with their batting, but on the other hand we both had reasonably good days at the bowling crease, and I was pretty satisfied with the workout."

Sri Lanka's superb team spirit at the moment is a refreshing factor that promises great things and this has resulted in them getting a great momentum coming into the tournament to give them high confidence. They have won 16 of their past 17 ODIs and are now ranked behind only Australia in international ODI ratings.

Complacency is the only factor that could upset the Lankans in their match against Zimbabwe. Cricket is littered with the wreckages of teams who had been expected to beat their unfancied opponents easily, but were shocked by a better-performing team on the day. Bracewell pointed to Kenya's win over Sri Lanka at last year's World Cup in South Africa as a perfect example of an unfashionable side coming up trumps against all odds and upsetting genuine title contenders.

Just as USA got the better of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe can spring a surprise on Sri Lankans. "But the United States' effort against Zimbabwe was a bit of an attention-getter. It just goes to show that you can't take any side lightly, and this one can obviously play some pretty useful cricket." said Bracewell.

In Chaminda Vaas, Sri Lanka have the top-rated one-day bowler in the world while wicket keeper batsman Kumar Sangakkara is on a roll recording nine over-50 scores in his last 17 matches. Sri Lanka's record in England is not very convincing and they have lost 19 out of 26 matches they have played here. But coach John Dyson believes that the old order is changing and Sri Lankans are having a better chance.

"I would say our bowling attack started to take shape after the ODI series against England last November and since then we have played a lot against Australia, which has been handy," he said. "Previously, we had difficulties in putting out a bowling side which was able to handle the conditions but now we have a pretty reasonable pace attack and spinners who are very well equipped.'' Dyson added.

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