Sri Lanka will be an exciting prospect in this World Cup having given a good account of themselves in the last edition of the competition. Since then, they have beaten some formidable opponents and their victory in the Asia Cup where they overcame both worlds’ number one and number two ranked teams was the icing on the cake.
True that Dasun Shanaka’s side need to play a qualifying round and not many experts are giving them a chance. But they came into the last edition of the tournament under similar circumstances. Having stormed through the group stage, they gave quite a scare to some of the strong opponents and nearly qualified for the semis.
Most of the players who were part of that campaign are still around and they will be tough to beat in this tournament. They will miss Kusal Perera and Avishka Fernando, two of the cleanest strikers of the modern game and match winners. But their replacements have been firing.
Possessing a formidable pace attack and crafty spin bowlers and batsmen who can be devastating in this format of the game, Sri Lanka will be watched carefully during this World Cup.
It’s been a tough few years for Sri Lanka in T-20 cricket and their poor ranking has resulted in them being made to playing the qualifying leg.
Currently, Sri Lanka are above both Bangladesh and Afghanistan in the ICC T-20 Rankings. But when automatic qualifications were taken into account, both Bangladesh and Afghanistan managed to stay fractionally above Sri Lanka.
A good showing in Australia will further help improve their rankings and the target for the former champions should be when West Indies and USA host the next tournament in 2024, they should look at qualifying automatically.
Playing the qualifying round can be a blessing in disguise as it helps the team to get some momentum being involved in some competitive games before the business end of the tournament begins later this month.
The team fell through the rankings having played some sloppy cricket in recent times. SLC need to be commended for putting measures to address these issues and the team has finally started to deliver.
Former Head Coach Mickey Arthur was given the tough task of rebuilding the side. He went about things purposefully having placed a high premium on fitness. That has resulted in all players pushing hard and as a result both performance and other important aspects like fielding have improved. That’s good to see.
Time was when Sri Lanka were as good as South Africa or Australia when it came to fielding. Standards dropped drastically resulting in some horrible performances. Improved fitness standards has helped them pull off some stunning catches in the deep. They maybe not getting batsmen run out with direct hits as much as they used to, but when you see the amount of hard work that is put in during training, you can sense that something big is on the cards.
There were a few murmurs when Chris Silverwood succeeded Mickey Arthur as the Yorkshireman had a tough Ashes campaign that cost him his job. But with his methodical and scientific approach, he has helped the team reach new heights and the Asia Cup win was no flash in the pan as they overcame some tough situations after being put under pressure.
Opener Kusal Mendis has gone through some tough times and despite poor returns, the team management kept backing him and he has started repaying them. If Mendis continues in this form, he can be devastating and become the team’s main match winner.
While Kusal is no dasher, he is still capable of scoring big in T-20 cricket very much like Babar Azam. The team has backed him to open the batting and how well he has adapted to this role. He clears the boundary not with brutal power but sweet timing and the options he has taken in his recent knocks gives you the assurance that he has turned a huge corner.
World Cup could be the occasion where he is recognized as one of the best batters in the world and if he continues like in the Asia Cup, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t grab an IPL contract next season.
Ideally, Sri Lanka would have loved to go into the World Cup having played the Lanka Premier League. But there have been many challenges with the economy in shambles and it was Hobson’s choice that the league tournament was called off.
The good news is that now it has been rescheduled for December and authorities should do all within their means to get the event underway as the previous editions of the competition has helped us identify new talents and given young players a platform to test themselves.
