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Indian Captain Shikhar Dhawan was anchorman for his team, a role which Sri Lanka’s inexperienced batters could have done with if one of their senior players was selected
By Sa’adi Thawfeeq
India taught Sri Lanka a lesson or two in the first ODI played at the R. Premadasa Stadium on Sunday that experience pays in the end when, their Captain and most experienced player in the side, Shikhar Dhawan shepherded his young troops to secure a convincing seven-wicket win, which in the end turned out to be a cakewalk for the visitors rather than a contest.
Dhawan held up one end while allowing his younger charges like Prithvi Shaw, Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav to freely express themselves, which they did much to the discomfiture of the Lankan bowling attack that was taken apart on a flat and slow surface.
What Sri Lanka missed during their batting was an experienced batter in their line-up who could have played the role that Dhawan did for India. A Chandimal, a Mathews or a Karunaratne, if they were picked would have provided a calming influence on the Lankan batting, that clearly showed that they lacked the experience and the capacity against a varied and experienced bowling attack.
The shots that some of the top and middle order batters played, which eventually led to their downfall, was due to the inability to find the gaps and pick the singles and twos which would have kept the scoreboard ticking. When the pressure began to build up with the number of dot balls, the batsmen tried to go big with a boundary or a six and ultimately paid the penalty. How much control the Indian bowlers had on our batsmen is easily exposed by the number of dot balls Sri Lanka played out – a staggering 157 out of the 300 balls they faced! Or more than half the overs (52.15% to be precise).
If not for Chamika Karunaratne’s excellent cameo knock towards the latter part of the innings, Sri Lanka would not have lasted the full quota of 50 overs or reached the total they finally achieved – 262-9 – which was still below par on the surface. Had India batted out their full quota of 50 overs (they won in 36.4), at the rate they were scoring, they would have ended up with a total close to 400.
With the Lankan selectors overlooking the seniors and taking a bold gamble that picking young blood would pay off with the 2023 World Cup in mind, they may have missed a trick or two here. The need of the hour is to try and finish within the first eight of the ICC Men’s World Cup Qualifier Rankings, and to do that, Sri Lanka must try and get the maximum resources available to them and work towards achieving that objective. If we fall short of gaining automatic qualification for the 2023 World Cup, no amount of experimenting with youngsters will benefit the team nor the country as we will be faced with the ignominy of having to qualify for the last two places with associate member countries to play in the World Cup.
We have already hit virtual rock bottom in the T20 format a mere seven years after winning the 2014 T20 World Cup, having to qualify with associate member countries for a place in the Super Twelve of the ICC T20 World Cup scheduled to be held in October. Do we have to suffer the same humiliation in the 2023 World Cup as well due to the short-sightedness of a few?
