Sri Lanka should take heart from Proteas bashing

Kusal Mendis

Charith Asalanka

Dasun Shanaka

Kusal Mendis, Charith Asalanka and Dasun Shanaka were the only bright lights for Sri Lanka in their defeat against South Africa

• Least experienced bowling attack in 2023 World Cup

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka whose bowlers were put to the sword by South Africa’s batsmen in their opening World Cup match at Delhi should not be disheartened from the pummelling they received at the hands of Quinton de Kock, Rassie van der Dussen and Aidan Markram, but use that experience to improve their bowling skills on flat surfaces which they will come across during their remaining matches of the tournament.

The manner in which Markram batted showed that he was in a totally different plane to the rest of the batsmen. He was in such sublime form that any bowling attack would have found it difficult to curb his stroke play.

Markram was the first to admit that it was a day where nothing could go wrong for him. “When it’s your day, try to cash in and really make it count,” he said at the post-match media conference. “Luckily, tonight, balls hit gaps. I mean, they don’t always hit gaps. And it could be a different story, but yeah thankful it worked out that way and again it was a really good pitch so that definitely assisted.”

Cricketers usually experience that kind of feeling during their careers and on Saturday it was Markram’s day. He raced away to the fastest hundred by anyone at a World Cup off 49 balls and South Africa to the highest ever total in a World Cup game – 428-5.

It is nothing to be ashamed of that South Africa scored as many against an inexperienced Sri Lankan bowling attack. South Africa came to the World Cup having hammered Australia for 416-5 in an ODI played at the Centurion where they won by 164 runs less than a month ago. The Australian bowlers who were taken to task were Josh Hazlewood, Marcus Stoinis, Adam Zampa, Michael Nesser and Nathan Ellis.  

The day before the match Sri Lanka head Coach Chris Silverwood having looked at the Delhi pitch said that it was belter, and it proved so. A total of 754 runs were scored on it surpassing the previous highest aggregate at a World Cup match of 714 between Australia and Bangladesh at Nottingham in 2019.

This sort of assault on the Sri Lankan bowlers cannot be ruled out in future matches for as compared to the rest of the nine teams in the competition, Sri Lanka has the least experienced bowling line-up. They sorely missed Wanindu Hasaranga, Dushmantha Chameera and Maheesh Theekshana who was in the dugout watching the carnage that was taking place before him. Theekshana could come into the team for Sri Lanka’s next match against Pakistan at Hyderabad on Tuesday and lend a little bit of experience to what one could describe as an uncooked bowling attack. The four frontline bowlers picked for the match – Rajitha, Madushanka, Pathirana and Wellalage had a total of 59 ODIs and 79 wickets between them. Against such an inexperienced line-up any team on a surface like the one at Delhi would have made merry. It is certainly a big headache for the coaching staff to strategize on how this bowling could contain or take wickets against an opposition if there is no help at all from the wicket.

Sri Lanka didn’t have luck on their side either because a couple of half chances and a run out were missed. When your bowling is weak, fielding comes into play in a big way to compensate for it and half chances like the ones that Sri Lanka missed out on should have been taken to encourage the bowling unit.

Sri Lanka certainly didn’t have a chance of chasing down South Africa’s massive total but at least they made an effort to put up a decent show with the bat and reach 326. If not for the difference in the wickets lost Sri Lanka could have given South Africa a good run. At the end of 40 overs they were on par with South Africa at 291-8 as against 291-3, the only difference being the loss of wickets. Kusal Mendis, the way he began, looked as if he was determined to chase after Markram’s record-breaking century. But it was too good to last and once he succumbed, the chase simply lost its momentum and it boiled down to how well Sri Lanka could utilise the remaining overs – there were 37 left. They managed to last 32, which raises the question why they are unable to consume their full quota of 50. This is the third successive occasion in this World Cup that Sri Lanka has failed to bat out their full quota, the first two being in the warm-up games. That is one area Sri Lanka needs to really work on for it’s a cardinal sin in ODI cricket not to use your full quota.

One encouraging factor to emerge from the match was that Charith Asalanka and skipper Dasun Shanaka managed to spend time in the middle to score fifties. Asalanka has proved time and again that he is rock solid in the middle-order lending that stability which the team needs. As for Shanaka, he could breathe a bit easy having finally managed to come up with a half-century after failures in his past 17 innings. He was not at his best but the innings would give him a world of good for his confidence for the rest of the tournament.