Sri Lanka v Kenya

Kenya slow after losing openers

Sri Lanka v Kenya, Group A, World Cup 2011, Colombo

Kenya bat, Malinga returns to bolster Sri Lanka

Kenya's struggling batsmen face one of their toughest tests in the tournament against a Sri Lanka attack bolstered by the return of two of their unconventional, hard-to-read bowlers - Lasith Malinga and Ajantha Mendis.

Sri Lanka have a well-earned reputation for being ruthless with smaller teams, and Kenya's task becomes even harder as the hosts have several reasons to be charged up for the encounter - to silence the criticism at home after the defeat to Pakistan on Saturday, and to put Kenya in place for the upset in 2003. Add to that reports of discord within the Kenyan camp, and chances of a repeat of that Nairobi shock seem remote.

Laisth Malinga

The track at the Premadasa is expected to be batsman-friendly, prompting Kenya captain Jimmy Kamande to choose to bat. Kenya have left out one of their most experienced bowlers, Thomas Odoyo, bringing in Peter Ongondo, and the other change is David Obuya for Rakep Patel.

One headache for Sri Lanka is the weather: thunderstorms are forecast for later in the evening. The home side will hope to wrap up the match before the rains come to avoid dropping a valuable point against an Associate team.

Sri Lanka: 1 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 2 Upul Tharanga, 3 Kumar Sangakkara (capt & wk), 4 Mahela Jayawardene, 5 Chamara Silva, 6 Thilan Samaraweera, 7 Angelo Mathews, 8 Nuwan Kulasekara, 9 Lasith Malinga, 10 Ajantha Mendis, 11 Muttiah Muralitharan.

Kenya: 1 Maurice Ouma (wk), 2 Seren Waters, 3 Colins Obuya, 4 David Obuya, 5 Steve Tikolo, 6 Tanmay Mishra, 7 Jimmy Kamande (capt), 8 Nehemiah Odhiambo, 9 Peter Ongondo, 10 Shem Ngoche, 11 Elijah Otieno.

Siddarth Ravindran is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo