KARACHI, Jan 19: International cricket returns to Pakistan soil with an air of expectation on Tuesday when the hosts take on Sri Lanka in the first of two back-to-back One-day Internationals at the National Stadium.

After a long debate following India’s pull-out from the scheduled Pakistan tour, the cricket boards of these friendly countries finally reached an accord that will see Sri Lanka touring Pakistan twice. After completing three-match one-day series in Lahore on Saturday, Mahela Jayawardene’s side will fly home to play India, the team they so convincingly defeated in the Asia Cup final in Karachi last July, for another series of limited-overs matches.

Sri Lanka will return to Pakistan in mid-February for a couple of Tests to complete the split tour that has been frenetically arranged.

Pakistan, sadly starved of top international cricketing action for most of last year, play their first series since beating the West Indies in all three one-dayers Abu Dhabi in November.

Shoaib Malik’s men are in a fresher frame of mind with most of the squad having sporadically played in the ongoing domestic season. In between the local games, Younis Khan, Sohail Tanvir and Umar Gul spent some of their time playing in the Australian competitions with the two pacemen just coming back from a Twenty20 tournament.

Sri Lanka by comparison have been on the road from November, with no rest to speak of between the tours of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh which were preceded by a short trip to Canada for the quadrangular Twenty20 event.

The grind of non-stop cricket plus travelling must have affected the tourists because at times they struggled to perform up to expectations on previous trips and only a miraculous batting effort, from Muttiah Muralitharan of all people, saved their blushes in the tri-nation tournament final in Dhaka last Friday.

With no Chaminda Vaas to call upon with the Sri Lankans selectors adopting a rotation policy to rest the trusted veteran left-arm seamer from both the Bangladesh triangular event and the Pakistan one-dayers, Jayawardene has relied for success on Muralitharan and the legendary off-spinner’s unorthodox spinning partner Ajantha Mendis.

Both Malik and Pakistan coach Intikhab Alam have identified Mendis, the quickest man to reach 50 wickets in One-day Internationals, as the major threat to their team and have been saying that they have come up with a strategy which has been declared as a classified document.

The Pakistan batsmen had little clue when they came up against Mendis in the Asia Cup’s Super Four match when Malik and vice-captain Misbah-ul-Haq were among the 23-year-old’s four victims.

Sri Lanka, inevitably, emerged ran out comfortable winners in that game which was also highlighted by a superb ton from the classy bat of Kumar Sangakkara.

It was during the same event that Mendis emerged on the horizon as the most exciting bowler on the centre stage, grabbing an Asia Cup record 6-13 in eight fascinating overs to hasten India’s defeat in the final.

With so much attention heaped on Mendis, senior professional Muralitharan appears to have taken a backseat, although the 36-year-old wily customer is on the threshold of yet another world record. He needs just nine wickets to surpass the great Wasim Akram’s ODI mark of 502 scalps to complete the grand double, having already scalped an unattainable 769 Test victims.

Both sides have not yet decided on their respective playing elevens. But since they are forced to play two games on consecutive days, their think-tanks would have to decide on rotating players.

Since Sri Lanka’s batting was a source of concern in the Dhaka tournament, Tillekeratne Dilshan has been called up into the squad after his heroics – century in each innings as well as taking wickets – in the Chittagong Test.

Although Jayawardene admitted in Sunday’s press conference that was unconcerned by his lack of runs in this format for a while now, Pakistan will be keen on extending the rival skipper’s lean trot especially keeping in mind that Sangakkara and the evergreen Sanath Jayasuriya are in the nick.

Shoaib Akhtar’s comeback to the ODI field – the Rawalpindi Express last played in a one-dayer at Gwalior in Nov 2007 – after sitting the Abu Dhabi series out with injury, remains uncertain after his captain used the word ‘if’ when queries were made about the speedster’s inclusion for the series opener, which starts at 12noon. Both teams will also be keeping an eye on the ICC one-day rankings. If Sri Lanka, currently languishing seventh, were to complete a washout of Shoaib Malik’s men in the forthcoming series, they would move above New Zealand into fifth spot.The incentive for fourth-placed Pakistan winning all three games will put them within one point of India who are third behind world champions Australia and South Africa.

Teams (from):

PAKISTAN: Shoaib Malik (captain), Salman Butt, Khurram Manzoor, Younis Khan, Misbah-ul-Haq, Shahid Afridi, Kamran Akmal, Sohail Tanvir, Shoaib Akhtar, Umar Gul, Saeed Ajmal, Yasir Arafat, Rao Iftikhar, Umar Amin, Sohail Khan.

SRI LANKA: Mahela Jayawardene (captain), Sanath Jayasuriya, Upul Tharanga, Kumar Sangakkara, Chamara Kapugedera, Tillekeratne Dilshan, Jehan Mubarak, Farveez Maharoof, Thilan Thushara, Nuwan Kulasekara, Muttiah Muralitharan, Ajantha Mendis, Dilhara Fernando, Angelo Mathews, Thilina Kandamby.