Flop of Asia: Sri Lanka stare at uncertain future
MUMBAI:Shocking as Sri Lanka’s defeat against Afghanistan in the Asia Cup on Monday was, it only underlined the mire cricket in the island finds itself post the 2015 World Cup.
Sri Lankan papers slammed the tournament elimination. The Daily Mirror dubbed it “The flop of Asia,” Daily News said one-day cricket had hit a “nadir” and The Island lamented the “sad night for Sri Lankan cricket”.
The chief area of concern has been batting where they have not been able to find suitable replacements for Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene and Tillakaratne Dilshan.
Since September 10, 2016, only two Lankan batsmen have scored 1,000 or more runs in ODIs — Upul Tharanga (42 games, 1,410 runs at 41.47) and Niroshan Dickwella (40, 1,228, 33.18).
The injury-prone Angelo Mathews, who has played only 23 matches in between, has the highest batting average of 59.2 (888 runs, 1x100, 5x50).
Only two batsmen — Tharanga and Mathews — have a batting average in excess of 40 in ODIs for Sri Lanka between September 10, 2016 and September 18, 2018.
Only eight ODI centuries have been scored by Sri Lankan batsmen in this period. Tharanga and Dickwella lead this list with two centuries each.
As a consequence, Sri Lanka, once regarded a force in limitedovers cricket, having won the 1996 World Cup and followed it up with two World Cup final appearances in 2007 and 2011, have won 16 and lost 39 out of 60 matches in the last three years.
Ranked 6th in ICC ODI rankings, Sri Lanka have lost 10 out of 14 series in this period, including a 3-2 home defeat against Zimbabwe which then captain Matthews described as “one of the lowest points” of his career.
Batsmen have let Sri Lanka down again in this Asia Cup. They produced meagre scores of 124 (against Bangladesh) and 158 (against Afghanistan) to suffer back-to-back-defeats and get knocked out of the tournament.
They have not fared too well in bowling either since the retirements of Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas and parttime spinner Sanath Jayasuriya. Lasith Malinga too is way past his best.