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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Henry L" data-source="post: 17058825" data-attributes="member: 260809">Sri Lanka seek to stall Hambantota slideMatch factsTuesday, August 26, 2014Start time 1430 local (0900 GMT)<img src="http://www.espncricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/192000/192047.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />Fawad Alam has scores of 62, 114* and 74 in his three ODIs this year Big PictureThe locals in Sri Lanka's southeast had been hoping for heavy rains to rejuvenate their crops and refill their wells. The rain though, has been in Colombo. Hambantota gets extra cricket instead. Given Sri Lanka have now lost three on the trot at the venue, that may not be much of a condolence prize.Sri Lanka is often thought of as a tough team to beat at home, particularly in limited-overs cricket. But since 2006, they have lost seven bilateral ODI series at home to the six they have won. In the last two years, they have also drawn against New Zealand and Bangladesh.Pakistan now have the chance to inflict a successive ODI series loss on the hosts, after South Africa beat them 2-1 last month. Angelo Mathews already has one eye trained on the World Cup, and had said he would experiment with Sri Lanka's combination in this series. But he will be tempted to shelve those ambitions for now, and pick his strongest team.Pakistan, meanwhile, are out to get silverware out of this tour. They had seemed sunk on Saturday until two batsmen with fewer than 50 ODIs between them put on a partnership worthy of seasoned one-day cricketers. Perhaps the wisest thing about their 147-run stand was that neither batsman seemed keen to rely on Shahid Afridi.Saturday's was the kind of win that fills a batting unit with confidence. If they can win a chase from five down, 160 adrift and the required rate touching seven an over, they might feel anything is possible. Moreover, Misbah-ul-Haq now seems to have some level-headed company in the middle order. They will be without their other middle-order anchor though, with Younis Khan <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/sri-lanka-v-pakistan-2014/content/current/story/773959.html" target="_blank">returning home</a> due to personal reasons. They will also need to make do without ace spinner Saeed Ajmal for one more match, but even without him, the bowling and batting appears to have the depth and variety to deal with whatever the temperamental Hambantota venue serves up on Tuesday.</blockquote>

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