One of Sri Lanka’s most attractive routes, the road from Colombo to Dambulla gets a fair share of local and foreign tourists. The elephant park in the bushlands of Pinnewala has one of the largest and most popular congregations of pachyderms in the country. A few miles further up, another large reserve hosted the famous 10-day Kandy Elasa Perehara temple festival, which concluded under the full-moon on Saturday. And then there’s the famous Golden Temple of Dambulla, with its huge smiling Buddha welcoming everyone into the city.Local organisers are hoping the turnout for Monday’s spectacle between India and hosts Sri Lanka will be as much as the daily attendance in these national hot-spots. The Rs 50 tickets, with which fans watch the match standing, have been sold out. The 25,000-capacity Rangiri Stadium is expected to have an even spread of fans to provide a surround-sound effect against a stunning rocky backdrop. The wicket has not been watered for 10 days and the little blades of surviving grass are awaiting the Sunday morning sun before the blade turns on them. Curator Annirddha Polonowita insists he’s prepared a typical high-scoring track for the 50-over format but the evidence suggests no deviation from the past, when slow bowlers have enhanced their reputation on this 22-yard strip. The gentle breeze blowing across the stadium can brighten up a seamer’s day though, and the calculations for Team India — who reached on Saturday evening — remain simple: win the toss, bat first, score big, and allow the spinners to take control. Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene, meanwhile, is looking to plot some more with Mendis and Murali. Mendis menaceThe Asia Cup final defeat is still ringing loudly in the background. Team India were responsible for making Mendis the man he is today, and they have now taken up the responsibility of bringing him down. The stress in the camp is on playing up to the pitch of the ball, and to deal with any flighted delivery firmly. Both Murali and Mendis have shown the tendency to give the ball a bit of air, and the visitors have set their sights to latch on to those balls.Skipper Dhoni is contemplating a 6-4-1 combination in the first match — six batsmen, four specialist bowlers and an all-rounder. Irfan Pathan is the only available option for that slot and the top-six are easy to pick, but there are worries in the bowling department over the inclusion of Pragyan Ojha. Preparing PragyanThe left-arm spinner has a huge role to play in the team’s scheme of things on such a surface. Ojha is expected to tame the right-handed batsmen in the Sri Lankan middle-order while working in tandem with Harbhajan Singh, but the warm-up match didn’t go too well for the Hyderabadi. With the right-handers hitting him cleanly across the line, bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad has been talking to Ojha since Friday, sorting out field-positions and the length to bowl to batsmen using the sweep shot.With Virender Sehwag as a fairly reliable spin option, Dhoni has the option to change his mind about Ojha but the final XI will only be decided after the team’s practice session on Sunday. Zaheer Khan and Praveen Kumar are likely to share the new ball, and though in-form batsman Yuvraj Singh is recovering from a sore back, he is certain to play.
