GMHBA Stadium pitch report: High on confidence Sri Lanka will take on Namibia in the opening match of T20 World Cup on Sunday.
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The time has almost arrived for the commencement of the much-awaited ICC T20 World Cup 2022, with Sri Lanka set to take on Namibia in the event opener on Sunday, at the Simonds Stadium in the city of Geelong.
The World Cup will begin with the qualifying stage, where eight teams will fight it out for the final four spots in the ‘Super 12’ stage, where the top eight sides in the ICC T20I rankings have already booked their respective berths.
For those unaware, the qualifying round will take place from October 16 (Sunday) to October 21 (Friday), with four teams each divided into Group ‘A’ and Group ‘B’.
ALSO READ: ICC T20 World Cup all team squads and player list
Sri Lanka, Namibia, Netherlands, and UAE belong to ‘Group A’, whereas Ireland, Scotland, West Indies, and Zimbabwe form ‘Group B’.
The top-2 teams in each of these two groups will advance to the ‘Super 12’ stage.
Sri Lanka will commence the group stage as favourites, after having defeated the likes of India and Pakistan to lift the Asia Cup 2022 last month.
Namibia, on the other hand, did qualify to the ‘Super 12’ stage in last year’s T20 World Cup as well, and have a couple of T20I series victories under their belt this year as well, against Uganda and Zimbabwe.
GMHBA Stadium pitch report
The GMHBA or the Simonds Stadium in Geelong will host only its second T20I on Sunday, with the lone, last one taking place in February 2017, between Sri Lanka and Australia.
Barring Kusal Mendis, none of the present members of the 2022 Sri Lankan World Cup squad, had featured during the aforementioned T20I nearly five years ago.
Overall, during the nine T20 matches at this venue from 2009-2022, the average score at the Simonds Stadium has been 157.8 runs, with the highest team total of 196.
While the pitch at this venue has been good for batting, the pacers are likely to do majority of the talking throughout the match, with four of the top-5 wicket takers so far here, in this format being pacers.
The bigger boundary dimensions both in-front and square of the wicket, will further act as an advantage for the bowlers at this venue.
