16 October 2004	Saturday	01 Ramazan 1425

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LAHORE, Oct 15: Hosts Pakistan have a golden opportunity to claim their first-ever tri-nation success at home when they entertain Sri Lanka in the final on Saturday in a day-night encounter at Qadhafi Stadium.

Having gained a psychological advantage over Sri Lanka by winning the previous two meetings in the competition by emphatic margins, the final provides Inzamamul Haq and his team-mates a chance to at last grab a trophy which has eluded them for nearly a decade.

Pakistan have not won anything of significance for a decade in the limited over version of the game. The last occassion Pakistan won anything of note was their first-ever triumph in the World Series in Australia under the leadership of Wasim Akram. Since then it has been nothing but heartbreaks and failures.

Everything in the final favours Pakistan. Playing at home in front of their own crowd and against an opponent who are not all that hot when competing on foreign soil makes the hosts favourites.

Besides, the Sri Lankans' recent form has been far from convincing. Yet Pakistan too are known to cave in when put under pressure as they showed in Colombo against Saturday's opponents and the West Indies in the Champions Trophy in England.

Taking into account results of the last two matches between the two sides, Pakistan looked definitely a better outfit in both batting and bowling resources though the two premier strike bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Sami have been disappointing.

On the contrary, Marvan Atapattu's charges especially in the bowling department, lacked penetration, sorely missing spin king Muttiah Muralitharan. An important factor that has also let the Islanders down is the continued deterioration in their out cricket which has for long been their forte.

Too many catches are spilled and even the ground fielding has been below par. All said and done, the unpredictability of ODIs cannot be ruled out as the Sri Lankans do possess the arsenal needed to come trumps on a given day.

One should not also ignore the importance of toss under lights and the dew factor which certainly helped Pakistan's lot on Thursday. Pakistan are expected to field the same eleven that played on Thursday while Sri Lankans are likely to include fit-again seamer Farveez Maharoof at the expense of Thilina Kambandy. A dry day is forecast for Saturday and the match is scheduled to start at 1.45pm.

TEAMS:

PAKISTAN (FROM): Inzamamul Haq (captain), Yousuf Youhana, Moin Khan, Salman Butt, Yasir Hameed, Shoaib Malik, Abdul Razzaq, Shoaib Akhtar, Rana Naveedul Hasan, Mohammad Sami, Shahid Afridi, Bazid Khan, Misbahul Haq, Rao Iftikhar, Younis Khan.

SRI LANKA (FROM): M.Atapattu (captain), M.Jayawardene, S.Jayasuriya, S.Jayantha, C. Vaas, N. Zoysa, N. Kambandy, K.Sangakkara, U. Chandana, K.Lokuarchchi, A. Gunewardena, F.Maharoof, D. Fernando, R.Herath, T.Dilshan.