Will Sri Lanka finally step up?

Melbourne is home to nearly half of all Sri Lankans who reside in Australia-nearly 60,000 in all. And you can expect most, if not all, of them to show up and cover the vast expanse of the MCG in the Lankan blue. But the question is will the Sri Lankan team actually turn up. In body they certainly will, but in spirit? Not on the basis of how they've gone in the series so far.

If anything the Australians, on the field that is, will be hoping that they do more than even they themselves would. This is after all the start of a lengthy campaign that Aaron Finch & Co. have embarked on to first claim the top ranking in T20I cricket and then lay their claim for a title that Australia have never won. Not to forget that they already have the current No.1 ranked team, Pakistan, in their backyard and having made a commanding start to their tour in the warm-up game. And they'll need more competition to get going and get tested in that regard, even if being indomitable and crushing opponents in clinical fashion like they have this week isn't a bad way to go about it.

There's still a long way to go till that World Cup but Australia will want to ask certain questions of themselves before they start feeling more settled with their setup. Steve Smith's return to the crease in T20I cricket was sensational, so were his revelations pre-game about him playing at his best on zero sleep, his different stances for different formats and his guitar skills. But that Smith is the best batsman in the country, and perhaps the world, was already known even if his exact role in this format still needs defining and feels more flexible at this stage. David Warner continued his dream run in white-ball cricket and the bowlers were as clinical as they were in Adelaide. The rest of the batsmen are still to come to the crease, forget the party, and Glenn Maxwell's