Sri Lanka have received a shot in the arm in the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) having progressed to fourth place in the table following their 2-0 series win in Bangladesh. The national cricket team was badly placed prior to the series as they were bottom of the table at ninth. However, after collecting all 24 points available from the series, Sri Lanka have made significant gains.
Given their remaining series in the WTC are against England, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, it will be a tedious task to qualify for the finals, but at least they can try and finish among top four. That will be quite an achievement for Sri Lanka in a sport that’s dominated by the Big Three.
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In the first cycle of WTC that ended in 2021, Sri Lanka finished a disappointing seventh but improved the standing to fifth in the next cycle – 2021-2023.
Obviously the exploits of Kamindu Mendis was the highlight for Sri Lanka. A player with immense potential and an excellent track record in domestic cricket, Kamindu should have fitted into the set up long before. Many keen observers of the game are also of the view that he is an all-format player. He did make a half-century on debut against Australia in 2022 but from thereon was given the cold shoulder. Not everyone will buy into the argument that there weren’t places on offer in the top seven. If the batters had been doing so fantastically, Sri Lanka wouldn’t be languishing at number eight in ICC Test Rankings.
The quicks deserve lot of credit. How well they bowled. Bangladesh were buoyed by the fact that they have the fast-bowling nucleus to check Sri Lanka and prepared a green top for the first Test. They were on cloud nine after winning the toss and reducing the Sri Lankans to 57 for five in the first session. Then came a back to the ball fightback from Dhananjaya de Silva and Kamindu Mendis. That was followed by a brutal show by the quicks.
Not often do you see Sri Lankan fast bowlers sharing all 20 wickets in a Test match. In Sylhet they did as Bangladesh were shot out for 182 and 188.
Apparently for the second Test, Bangladesh had prepared a wicket with grass but suddenly they had got cold feet and in the 11th hour there were orders to cut the grass. Not bad for Sri Lanka’s quicks to send some chills in the spines of the opposition.
It was a remarkable show. There is Vishwa Fernando, who always does something with the new ball and when conditions are helping seamers, he has his tail up. He is a wholehearted fast bowler throwing in all what he has got. He is also a very hard working guy.
Kasun Rajitha is a workhorse with an ability to remain patient bowling long spells and not giving too many balls to score from. It was so good to see him finish with eight wickets in the first Test.
Then there’s Lahiru Kumara. He has been a letdown since his impressive showing in Cape Town in 2017 when he hurried the Proteas with his pace as a teenager. But since then, frequent injuries have dented his development. When he was picked for the Bangladesh series, there were doubts whether he will last a full Test match, but not only did he go through the entire series, he emerged as the highest wicket taker too from either side finishing with 11 wickets averaging 12:61.
Asitha Fernando was initially thought to be out of the series. But he recovered from a hamstring injury and showed up at the second Test and was quite handful.
Asitha is every captain’s dream. When the ball gets older, quicks don’t like bending their backs. But Asitha is a different kettle of a fish. He reverse swings the old ball to deadly effect making life difficult for batters. The other good thing about Asitha is that when the wicket goes flat, he can still make an impact. His bouncers are quite accurate and tested a few Bangladeshis with some sharp rising deliveries in Chittagong.
There’s no doubt that under Head Coach Chris Silverwood the fast bowlers have improved leaps and bounds. With two Test series coming up in England and South Africa, there’s all the reason for you to be excited to see how Sri Lanka’s quicks will go.
One area of concern though is the number of injuries to fast bowlers. White ball format quicks like Dushmantha Chameera and Matheesha Pathirana are constantly on the mend and Sri Lanka are rarely able to field a full-strength side in crunch games or tournaments. This is certainly an area that they need to address before long.
After the World Cup disappointment of 2023, the team has come up with some impressive performances and the efforts of fast bowlers no doubt are commendable.
 having progressed to fourth place in the table following their 2-0 series win in Bangladesh. The national cricket team was badly placed prior to the series as they were bottom of the table at ninth. However, after collecting all 24 points available from the series, Sri Lanka have made significant gains.){kind=link}