New Captain Asalanka battles with middle order batting conundrum

Sri Lanka white ball Captain Charith Asalanka 

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Charith Asalanka’s elevation to the Sri Lanka T20I captaincy has turned into a nightmare for him as his team succumbed to a 3-0 whitewash to India on Sunday at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium.

Scores of 0, 14 and 0 tells the story that the Captain is under pressure to deliver as much as his middle order batters. Outplayed in the first two T20Is Sri Lanka found themselves within touching distance of a consolation win in the series in the third and final game, but botched it when that brittle middle order failed for the third time in as many matches. It was undoubtedly Sri Lanka’s game after their bowlers had done a splendid job to restrict India to 137-9 and Sri Lanka had serenely moved to 108-1 at the end of 15 overs. A further 30 was all they needed off the last five and yet, they couldn’t do it, finishing on par with India which resulted in a tie and a Super Over which they eventually lost.    

“It was bad shot selection as in the previous two matches. As Captain I must admit we made mistakes and let everyone down,” said Asalanka at the post-match press conference. “I didn’t expect us to fall to this level. We had a great opportunity to win the match. As a Captain I am really disappointed.”

“Our performance shows that we have a lot to improve if we are going to play against top opposition. We have to uplift ourselves and perform better than this if we are to play at this level. We have to practice and improve our mental skills. We have to me mentally tough in the middle. It’s not easy doing that but if we are to play at this level and win you need to.”

“When you play good teams like India you’ve got to have a higher level of execution. We have to make fewer mistakes and our execution level should be on the high side. The plus point of us is that our top three batters performed well in all three matches. The problem lies with the middle order. If you summarise the series it is our middle order batting that let us down,” Asalanka said.

Having lost the T20I series Asalanka who has been given the ODI captaincy as well will have a tough task taking on a full strength Indian side in a three-match series starting at the R. Premadasa Stadium on Friday. – (ST)