Cricket greats Ian Chappell and Marvan Atapattu have anticipated a tasty rematch between India and Sri Lanka at the Asia Cup final.

India stormed to a win against Sri Lanka by six wickets which will ultimately see both sides facing off again at the final on Sunday.

Chappell reserved special mention for Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who cracked a rapid 67 runs from 62 deliveries in the Super Four match following the aftermath of his recent comments which prompted sharp responses from all quarters.

He explained: “I think probably the most impressive part was MS Dhoni. “

“He’s made his feelings clear about the scheduling and the back-to-back matches but having made his point, he then got out there and not only played very well but he’s obviously got his players to the point where it did not affect their play.”

“He’s also a good leader in that he’s not frightened to put himself in a position where he leads from the front and he did it again putting himself up the order.”

The Australian highlighted the Indians’ bowling as a significant aspect of their convincing victory.

“I think their bowling was better and they had a lot of bowlers who were out of form coming into this game but Praveen Kumar showed that he is starting to turn things around a little bit and they left Piyush Chawla out and played Pragyan Ojha and so they did change a few things around,” he said.

“And I thought that Ishant Shaarma bowled a pretty good spell early on so there were some encouraging signs and the battings kept them in it up to now .”

“But the good sign for me was the fact that the bowling was starting to turn it around with the final coming up.”

Whilst it was understandable that the Sri Lankan outfit was not as its full strength having already qualified for the final, Chappell was not in favour of the idea of leaving the bowlers on the sidelines.

He remarked: “I’m not a great one for this idea of leaving bowlers out so that the opposition don’t see them until they get to the final.”

“I’d much rather go the other way and let the bowler look at him and let him and if Ajantha Mendis got three or four wickets against India in this game, then surely he would have gone into the final with a bit of an advantage over India.

Chappell is expecting a tight encounter on Sunday but did elaborate on a slight advantage from the Sri Lankan’s point of view.

“I think India have got to play two front-line spinners during the final but I don’t think they’ve got two who are in as good form as the Sri Lankans so that’s the only edge I can see for Sri Lanka in spin bowling,” he commented.

Former Sri Lankan captain Marvan Atapattu felt confident of his compatriots extending their successful Asia Cup run.

He said: “We have a 100% win record in finals at the Asia Cup so I won’t be surprised if we win plus they had a good build up to the Asia Cup and we all know that Sri Lanka didn’t play the best eleven suitable for conditions .”

“It is hard to motivate the team when you know you are in the final but I’m pretty sure that the attitude of the whole team will be different in the final and the good thing about this tournament is that the best two deserving teams are in the final.”

Nevertheless, Atapattu expects his counterparts to provide a stern test of their credentials.

“India are playing very well and their plans are working where at the top you see two of the most exciting batsmen in world cricket going after it and they are getting about eight or nine runs and over and you have a captain who leads from the front ,” he explained.

“That shows character and there will be stiff competition from the Indians in the final as they probably know this is the best chance for them to win the Asia Cup for the fifth time.”

He added that taking the iniative on a offensive level would determine the winners.

Atapattu said: “I think the final has a lot to do with the team that is prepared to attack and get wickets.”

“It’s a batsmen friendly wicket and no doubt heaps of runs will be scored unless a team decides to get wickets by attacking, that is the team that’s going to win and the team that is going to sit back and think that they’ll get wickets will have a major problem.”

By Mohd Sham (espnstar.com)