Tuesday Dec 24, 2024
Tuesday Dec 24, 2024
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By Madushka Balasuriya
Sri Lanka’s selectors have axed roughly half the team that ended the limited overs series in South Africa, and in the process made several left-field picks for their preliminary 15-man World Cup squad. The squad must be finalised by 23 April.
Akila Dananjaya, Niroshan Dickwella, Upul Tharanga and Dinesh Chandimal are the most notable omissions, while the likes of Jeevan Mendis, Lahiru Thirimanne, Milinda Siriwardena and Jeffrey Vandersay have all been selected despite not making an ODI appearance in the last two years.
Less surprising is the inclusion of Kusal Janith Perera, Kusal Mendis, Angelo Mathews and Dhananjaya De Silva, all likely to make up Sri Lanka’s middle order, while Thisara Perera and Isuru Udana will offer striking power lower down the order.
The selectors meanwhile have opted for experience in terms of the team’s pace contingent, with Lasith Malinga spearheading an attack that also includes Suranga Lakmal and Nuwan Pradeep. This means there’s no space for either Dushmantha Chameera or Vishwa Fernando, though Kasun Rajitha is on the standby list, alongside Oshada Fernando, Angelo Perera and Wanindu Hasaranga.
Where the selectors have shaken things up the most is at the top of the order, with Karunaratne likely to be partnered by either Thirimanne or the 21 year-old Avishka Fernando - neither combination tested at the highest level.
Thirimanne had initially been drafted into the Test setup for the tours of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, with modest returns, but had impressed in the Super Provincial Tournament earlier this month, posting 213 runs over four matches, including scores of 115 and 82.
Fernando, too, impressed in the tournament, scoring 86 runs over three innings, including a fifty, though his selection was mainly predicated on his explosive potential. He had earlier been included in Sri Lanka’s squad to face South Africa last month but had failed to make much of a mark, despite coming into the series on the back of blistering domestic form.
The pair join several other players to make it into the squad on the back of strong tournament performances. Jeevan Mendis, who last played an ODI in 2015, scored 83 runs - including an unbeaten fifty - and picked up six wickets in three innings; Jeffrey Vandersay picked up five wickets, a majority of them to break up threatening partnerships; and Milinda Siriwardene scored 137 runs over four games, while also picking up a wicket with his
slow left-arm spin.
The tournament also proved to be a decisive blow against the likes of Niroshan Dickwella and Danushka Gunathilaka, both of whom missed out on the back of poor showings.
Since the start of 2017, Gunathilaka had been a mainstay at the top of the order, scoring 725 runs in 20 games at an average of 38.15. However he missed most of last year after being suspended on disciplinary grounds, and then upon returning to the squad got summarily injured. Scoring just 25 runs in the tournament, the selectors felt his form couldn’t warrant a World Cup berth.
Dickwella, meanwhile, will consider himself even more unfortunate, having been one of Sri Lanka’s top performers prior to his recent lean stretch. Since the start of 2018 up until the South Africa tour Dickwella had scored 546 runs over 15 innings at 36.40. In South Africa, over the course of three ODIs and three T20Is, he scored just 74 runs at 12.33. He compounded matters with an abysmal domestic showing, scoring just 31 runs in the recently concluded tournament.
“Experience is good, but you have to be in form,” explained Chief Selector Asantha De Mel, elaborating on the pair’s omission. “Thirimanne is in form. He’s batting beautifully, you can see. Danushka Gunathilaka was playing well but unfortunately he got injured and hasn’t been able to recapture that form.
“Dickwella also played well in New Zealand and Australia, but in the limited overs games in South Africa he would always get out within the first few overs. When he’s in that sort of form it’s difficult to select him, but honestly if he had performed [in the Super Provincial Tournament] we could have easily fit him in the squad.”
Spin-bowling all-rounders and batting deep
In forming the squad, the selectors have also chosen to focus on Sri Lanka’s strengths in the hope of mitigating their weaknesses, explained De Mel. This in part explains the exclusion of Akila Dananjaya in favour of a trio of part-time spinners in Dhananjaya De Silva, Jeevan Mendis, and Milinda Siriwardene - all of whom are handy with the bat - leaving just Vandersay as a specialist spinner.
We have two options. Either you try to restrict the opposition to a lower score by playing five genuine bowlers, or else you give away a few more runs, but you have a few more options in your batting that you can chase those runs. We’ve got to see where our strengths and where our weaknesses are. At the moment it’s that we’re not putting enough runs on the board for our bowlers to defend,” he noted.
“Either Dhananjaya or Milinda can play at number 6, because 3, 4 and 5, are Kusal Janith, Kusal Mendis, and Angelo Mathews. So number six has to be someone who can bowl because if not there’s too much pressure on the bowlers, and you can’t balance the team. And we also want some experienced batsman at that position, someone capable of putting on 50-60 runs with the tail.”
De Mel has also been unimpressed with Dananjaya’s performances since remodelling his action, and is of the opinion that De Silva offers more of a threat. With the team also intent on placing more focus on wrist-spinners over off-spinners, he felt there was no choice but to omit Dananjaya.
“We can’t have two off-spinners. The captain was also of the same view. But we do need two leg-spinners. You take India, Ravichandran Ashwin hasn’t been selected, but they took Jadeja and the two wrist-spinners. The thing is that, especially in one-day cricket, the wrist-spinners are the ones that are effective.
“[When it comes to Akila Dananjaya] I think after he’s remodelled his action he’s really scared to put that effort in. So in that way his bowling has come down from what it was before. He’s not getting bite and the kinds of revs that he used to get on the ball.
“If you take Dhananjaya De Silva’s performance and Akila’s performance, Dhananjaya De Silva gets a wicket ever 26 balls, Akila gets a wicket every 50 balls. And if you see the deviation off the wicket Akila is about 2.8, Dhananjaya De Silva is about 3.2, which means he’s spinning the ball more.”
The Dimuth dynamic
Sri Lanka meanwhile will be led by Dimuth Karunaratne, who himself hasn’t played an ODI since the last World Cup in 2015. The selectors had made the appointment on the back of Karunaratne’s impressive leadership during Sri Lanka’s Test series win in South Africa, and while the man himself is unsure why he’s so well-liked, he’s hopeful of translating his success into the limited overs setup.
“I have no idea why they like me,” joked Karunaratne when queried over his influence. “Mostly I will stay with them as a friend, I don’t behave like a senior player or anything like that. I always go talk with them and ask them what they need. I’m always having conversations with them so I think that makes it easier to manage them.
“I know what they need, and help out if they request anything. Even in the Test series I spoke to all of them and managed to get their views across to the management. Maybe that’s why we had a good time in South Africa.”
The 30 year-old, who will likely open the innings, is also confident that he’ll be able to adjust to playing one-day cricket despite his four-year hiatus. In fact, he feels his experience playing longer innings in Tests will hold him and the team in good stead in terms of laying down a platform to score big totals of 350-plus.
“Even though I’m playing ODI cricket after four years, I’ve been consistently playing List A cricket during that time and have always been among the top run scorers domestically. And in those years I also have the experience of playing Test matches at international level, so it’s just the format that’s changing.
“In terms of the team being unable to post scores close to 350, if you look at our matches it’s mainly because we’ve lost wickets early and our big hitters are always at the crease inside the first 25 overs. I think if the top order provides a good platform, and allow our most explosive batsmen to bat after the 35th over I think we can score 350.
“In the past tournament you can see that after 30 overs we were always around the 130 mark for about two, three wickets, but in the last 20 overs there were occasions where teams scored around 200 runs because the explosive batsmen were able to play freely with wickets in hand. It’s when we don’t have wickets in hand in the final overs that the problems arise.”
