Christmas is never celebrated at home by the Sri Lankan cricketers. Last Christmas they were in Australia while for the previous Christmas they were in South Africa. This year they will not only be away from home but even play an ODI on Christmas day.
With England and Australia gradually losing their stronghold, is playing a game on Christmas day the new trend instead of playing on Boxing Day? The first Test against Pakistan begins on 31st of December, which means when the New Year dawns they will be onto the second day of the Test series.
Nevertheless, the tour is a much welcomed one. Thanks to the shortsightedness of those who are running Sri Lankan cricket we lost out on two crucial Test series– West Indies away and South Africa at home. Into the bargain, the tour to Zimbabwe where the selectors wanted to test younger players was scrapped due to Zimbabwe’s financial issues.
To start with, the two T-20 Internationals will provide the Sri Lankans another opportunity to get their combination for the next year’s World T-20 in Bangladesh right. Dinesh Chandimal’s side start the series as the number one ranked team in the world in T-20s and the obvious challenge would be to hold onto that prestigious position.
Quality cricket was somewhat lacking for the Sri Lankans throughout 2013. The year though started off with a series against Australia. Then there was the Champions Trophy in England and the tri-nation series in the Caribbean followed by the ODI series against South Africa at home.
By the time the ODI series against a weakened New Zealand side came by in November, most Sri Lankans fans weren’t bothered. A cricket mad nation had lost interest mainly due to lack of competitive cricket.
The upcoming series against a quality side like Pakistan against whom the Sri Lankans have had many interesting battles over the years will spice up the mood.
Star batsman Kumar Sangakkara was prolific in ODI cricket this year. To his credit, despite having scored over 10,000 runs in ODI cricket, he listened keenly to some of the improvisations that coach Graham Ford was speaking and having practiced them for months he tired those strokes in the middle. Out of the blues Sangakkara executed the paddle sweep, reverse sweep and the scoop during the series against South Africa and his defences looked impregnable. The reliable Sangakkara turned out to be deadly all of a sudden.
Along with him only five other batsmen have scored over 1000 runs in ODI cricket this year. Sangakkara has the best average of them all. Along with his impressive 73:78 average, the strike rate of 93:82 is quite phenomenal.
Sri Lanka have a poor rank of seven in Test cricket. Their poor performance in Test cricket is due to lack of opportunity and playing mediocre oppositions all too often. You are not going to improve your ranking by playing Bangladesh and New Zealand. But the current tour, where they will play three Tests, provide them an opportunity to fight hard for a series win and finish as one of the top five teams in the world. That surely will be the motivation.
The Sri Lankans will be mindful that for the World Test Championship scheduled for 2017 only the top four teams qualify and at the moment they are nowhere near getting there.
It was a shame that Sri Lanka only played three Tests this year. And two of those were against Bangladesh. Six more Tests were cancelled due to short sightedness of our administrators.
