Sri Lanka’s best not enough to make the Lord’s final?

3 Sri Lankan cricketers achieved personal milestones - Captain Dhananjaya de Silva (reached 4000 Test runs), Dinesh Chandimal (6000 Test runs) and Angelo Mathews (8000 Test runs) celebrated the occasion by cutting a cake

It was not easy scoring runs in South Africa as Lankan batsmen found out during 2nd Test against South Africa at Gqeberha

• Batting of the two sides made all the difference in Test series with South Africa

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq 

Having squandered their chances of making it to the World Test Championship final at Lord’s next year, Sri Lanka have only an outside chance of making it following their 2-0 series loss to South Africa on Monday. 

For Sri Lanka to qualify a lot of things have to work out in their favour. 

Sri Lanka can still finish in the top two if the results end up the following way: 

As it stands, if Sri Lanka beat Australia 2-0 at home the maximum percentage points they can get is 53.85%.

For Sri Lanka to qualify, South Africa must lose both their home Tests against Pakistan which means that they will finish on 52.78%. If that scenario happens only either Australia or India can top Sri Lanka’s tally of 53.85%.

On the other hand, if South Africa draw at least one Test against Pakistan, they will finish above 55% and also if Australia beats India by a 2-1 margin, both countries will finish below Sri Lanka. Australia will end up with 53.51% and India 51.75%.

It’s asking a lot, but that’s how the situation stands for Sri Lanka at the moment. 

The end of last week saw three Tests commencing at Gqeberha between Sri Lanka and South Africa, at Adelaide between Australia and India, and at Wellington between England and New Zealand. Of these six countries, apart from England, the other five were in contention for a place for the WTC final next year.

But one by one as the Test matches unfolded the teams dropped off from the race to Lord’s.

The first team to bow out was New Zealand when England beat them comprehensively by 323 runs in the second Test. It was New Zealand’s second successive defeat in the three-match series.

Then Australia turned tables on India in the second Test which was a day-night affair played with the pink ball. Australia won by 10 wickets to level the series 1-all and go to the top of the WTC table. But Australia’s reign at the top was short-lived for a day later, South Africa beat Sri Lanka by 109 runs to displace Australia.  There is a saying that South Africa is one of the most difficult countries to score runs, and so it proved with Sri Lanka. Their downfall was their batting where none of the seven batters managed to score a century. The inability for the batsmen to make it big once they have got in was a key factor. The highest individual score was Pathum Nissanka’s 89. One other batsman got into the eighties – Dinesh Chandimal with 83. Overall there was only four half-centuries scored in the series with the other two coming off the bat of the captain Dhananjaya de Silva. In comparison, South Africa had 4 batsmen scoring centuries with their captain Temba Bavuma outstanding. Making a return to international cricket after a seven-week lay-off from injury Bavuma made scores over fifty in each of his four innings in the series to finish with an aggregate of 327 (av. 81.75). The batting of the two sides made all the 

difference.

Sri Lanka were in for a rude shock at the start of the series when they were rolled over for 42 – their lowest total in Test history. But to their credit it must be said, they recovered from that jolt to post totals of 282, 328 and 238 and for most parts being in the game, but failing to capitalise on the chances that came their way to put the pressure back on South Africa.

The four bowlers – Asitha Fernando, Vishwa Fernando, Lahiru Kumara and Prabath Jayasuriya played their part, at times the seamers especially Asitha Fernando overdoing the short pitched ball which they simply wasted on the lower order and tail and allowed South Africa to capitalise on it and score valuable runs which in the end proved to be Sri Lanka’s undoing. The ground fielding was good but the catching was not up to the mark where vital chances were missed which let South Africa off the hook.

What the series in South Africa exposed was that Sri Lanka has a lot of work to do especially when they are playing outside their territory. In this modern age of cricket where there is hardly any room to fit in warm-up matches, it is never easy to adjust quickly to the conditions and pitches as Sri Lanka found out for themselves. It is an area which they really must find a way to overcome if they are to be competitive and want to win abroad.