Crunch time for Sri Lanka

A deflated Sri Lanka team after their eight-wicket defeat at the hands of Afghanistan in the Asia Cup opener

• Must win game against BD today to survive in Asia Cup

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

It’s crunch time for Sri Lanka in their fixture against Bangladesh at Dubai today where the winner will join Afghanistan from Group B and qualify for the next stage of the Asia Cup competition - the Super Fours.

By beating Sri Lanka and Bangladesh rather comprehensively and topping the group with four points, Afghanistan have already qualified to play in the next round.

Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are the two teams in Group B without a win and whoever comes out victorious today will go through to the next round.

Sri Lanka would have had their hearts in the mouths on Tuesday when Bangladesh took on Afghanistan. A win for Bangladesh in this contest would have made it extremely difficult for Sri Lanka to qualify for the next round as they were so badly beaten by Afghanistan that their net run rate took a massive battering.

Had Bangladesh beaten Afghanistan and Sri Lanka in their turn defeated Bangladesh all three teams would have ended on two points each and then the net run rate would have come into contention in deciding the top two teams in the group.

Fortunately, Afghanistan beat Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were able to breathe a bit easy, knowing they still had a chance of making it to the Super Four if they beat Bangladesh today.

Sri Lanka’s problems has been with their batting which has been a long standing one and still they have not got their combinations right. They have been experimenting with the top order batting so much that the consistency to produce a good total is always lacking. This has in many ways contributed to the large number of defeats the team has suffered in recent years and their current ranking at eight and having to qualify for the tournament proper in the upcoming T20 World Cup justifies it.

Even today Sri Lanka’s T20 problems are far from over. Where Sri Lanka are erring is that they have not yet found two suitable batsmen to open the innings and get the maximum runs in the first power play. Pathum Nissanka and Kusal Mendis are not players who are going to hit over the top and clear the infield 30-yard circle, and there lies the root of Sri Lanka’s problems. 

They need to get two batters who can make maximum use of the power play and the players who can do that are Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Danushka Gunathilaka and Niroshan Dickwella, who for reasons best known to the selectors has been side-lined from white ball cricket. Sending them late in the order is not serving the purpose. Sri Lanka has always struggled because they never had a decent opening partnership going for the rest of the batters to capitalize on later. 

Instead, by losing 2-3 wickets in the power play they put the rest of the batting on the defensive, unable to free their arms and go for the big shots because at the same time they have to preserve their wickets as well to bat out the 20 overs.

Kusal Mendis is clearly not a T20 cricketer and whether Nissanka should be persisted with in the shortest format is questionable. In Chamika Karunaratne and captain Dasun Shanaka they have two half-baked all-rounders. What is the role of Shanaka other than being the captain will be interesting to know.

There is a lot wrong in the balance of the team and the selections and Sri Lanka will be lucky even if they get past Bangladesh, how long they can sustain the pressure of playing in the Super Fours.