By Akhila Seneviratne
With the South Africans getting their revenge from the ODI series with a 3-0 whitewash in the T20 series, this raises some serious concerns on the Sri Lankan team. With just one month to go before the ICC T20 World Cup, it already feels too late to work on the things we did wrong.
Sri Lanka were lucky to win the T20 series against a sub-par Indian team with most players being quarantined over a covid scare. The real test was against the South Africans who had batsmen that can bat the entire 20 overs if they liked to (if the runs of both openers are added, it is more than the entire Sri Lanka team combined). That doesn’t mean Sri Lanka doesn’t have batsmen but this has been our poorest, with 136,103 and 120 being the runs scored.
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Dinesh Chandimal made an impressive international comeback with 66* in the first match but that was not enough to take Sri Lanka over the line. Charith Asalanka who scored 196 runs in the ODIs failed to replicate his success in the shorter format (6 and 14). As of Dhananjaya De Silva who chipped in with 30s in the ODIs, he scored only 6 runs in the entire T20 series (1,4 and 1) which is a huge question mark in his role in the T20 side. Dasun Shanaka did not anchor the Innings when needed in all 3 games and suffered the same fate as the vice-captain.
Avishska Fernando is most suitable in the one day’s and his T20 strike rate is below 100. Same as DDS who is far superior in the Test format. This really questions on whether the Invitational T20 served its purpose in finding T20 batsmen and the Captain being the highest run-scorer, has failed in contributing with that bat in all 3 games against South Africa. Bhanuka Rajapaksa was inconsistent (only one double-figure of 20 runs) but Kusal Janith Perera (30 and 39) was the highest scorer for Sri Lanka.
As of the powerplay, Sri Lanka did better than the first game with 52 and 45 in the last 2 but with wickets falling in regular intervals, it puts a lot of pressure on the team despite starting well. The changes made in the batting lineup also didn’t help as more wickets fell with no recovery. Chamika Karunaratne showed some potential with the bat as he was not one in the 20s and raises the question on whether he should be promoted up the order (4 or 5 down).
Batting was not up to standard and our bowling didn’t help the cause. If South African part-time spinners were able to get wickets on a Sri Lankan pitch, it would definitely trouble the key bowlers when they don’t get any. In fact, Sri Lanka were able to get only 6 wickets in 3 games (5,1 and no wickets yesterday). The spinners used in the powerplay didn’t help as the South Africans were no interested in hitting over the rope and were content with singles and occasional boundaries. The bowling plan and attacking fields were proven almost useless as South Africa won the last 2 games by 9 and 10 wickets.
The preparation for the World Cup is definitely a big question for the Sri Lankan team. Wanindu Hasaranga and Dushmantha Chameera have left the island to play the remaining of the IPL and the rest of the Sri Lankan camp have to work on what went wrong. Sri Lanka is in serious trouble of not being able to qualify to the Super 12 if they don’t improve on what went wrong.
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