No feet movement: Sri Lanka’s Dhananjaya de Silva is caught plumb in front of the wicket during the second ODI against Bangladesh at Mirpur – AFP 

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Apart from poor team selections, it is some of the techniques of the top order batsmen that has put Sri Lanka in the muddle that they find themselves in, staring at another 3-0 whitewash in an ODI series.

It was pointed out in these columns that had Sri Lanka played Niroshan Dickwella in the ODI series in the West Indies we could have easily reversed the result and won 3-0 instead of the other way round. What is happening in Bangladesh is that the selectors have not learnt a lesson from the West Indies tour and are repeating the same mistakes over again so that Sri Lanka now find themselves trailing 0-2 going into the third and final ODI at Mirpur today.

In the only intra-squad practice game Sri Lanka played before the commencement of the ODI series against Bangladesh, Dickwella top scored with a sprightly knock of 80 before retiring, but to everyone’s surprise he was not considered good enough to make it to the final 11 for the first two ODIs which Sri Lanka lost. Isn’t it the practice to play the batsman in form, than those who are not?  It is absolutely criminal keeping a player of the calibre of Dickwella out of the one-day side. On the one hand, the cricket advisory committee and the national selectors who drew up the new player contracts have placed Dickwella at the top of the grading as a cricketer who can play in all three formats, so why aren’t they making use of his capabilities? Dickwella need not keep wickets to be in the side, his batting is more valuable to the team and he is a pretty good fielder too.

In the first ODI, the way Wanindu Hasaranga and Isuru Udana came and played the spinners, you could clearly see the weaknesses of the top order. When your first six batsmen are back in the pavilion for just 102 runs on the board that clearly shows that there is something radically wrong with the selection.

Pathum Nissanka for instance does not fit into the one-day mode. He may have got a hundred on Test debut, but you can’t judge the ability of a player playing these low-ranked sides, you must take on teams like India, England and Australia to see their real talent.

Ashen Bandara has only one shot and that is the sweep. A batsman is supposed to use both hands when he is batting, but Bandara has a habit of taking one hand off the bat when he sweeps or when he is driving which means that he is not in complete control of his bat. These players are picked by the selectors and when they come into this league their limitations are going to get exposed. In the first ODI, Bandara used up 24 balls to score three runs. Is it so difficult to take a run by nudging the ball around like Mushfiqur Rahim did so often behind the wicket to third man? On those slow tracks, you cannot force the pace. In everything there is an art of playing and you must figure out the type of wicket very quickly and then adapt to suit the conditions.

Weakness is in the footwork

We talked about the slow and low wickets which the team will experience in Bangladesh. Shouldn’t anybody in the selection committee pay attention to this reality? It seems the national selectors and those who sit with them are totally clueless. You get a failed selector, a failed selector cum coach as national selector, so it is no surprise regarding the selections they are doing. It is up to the selectors to look at the fundamentals of the side. In a country where there are slow and low wickets, you take the batsmen who have the ability to play spin, and that can even be a schoolboy. There are far better schoolboys who could have gone and made runs against that Bangladesh attack which is not threatening at all. Unless you pay attention to the basics of the game, you don’t pick the right side.

So far, not one cricket pundit has pointed out that the weakness is in the footwork of the Lankan batsmen. It is plain to see on television that the batsmen are stuck to their crease. The footwork of Kusal Mendis, Dhananjaya de Silva, and Kusal Perera have all deteriorated. Footwork is something an Under-12 coach teaches you and it becomes a habit, but today when these batters go on the bowling machine you cannot teach them footwork.

Then take the cases of the two ‘Kusal’s. Kusal Perera and Kusal Mendis were both out of the side for quite some time and what do the selectors do? They take them in as captain and vice-captain. Blindly, they went and first appointed a captain who has not even captained his Under-12 side. To be a captain, you must have certain attributes; you can’t simply slot somebody into a leadership role when you are not trained for that role in your career. The selectors have made a fundamental blunder by picking somebody who has not led the team throughout his school career. On top of it all, they tell Kusal Perera that he is on trial and that he has been appointed for just two series (Bangladesh and England). By doing so, aren’t you putting an unnecessary burden on him? The unnecessary pressure has gotten to his batting as well. He used to get 40s and 50s and now he is totally confused.

Kusal Mendis needs to be backed all the way. If you are bringing him into a side, give him his due place where he has won matches for the country batting at No. 3. You bring Nissanka to bat at three and tell Mendis to bat at four, he will not make runs. If you want Mendis to make runs, you have to have him in the No. 3 slot.

Regarding our bowlers, we are playing the 33-year-old Isuru Udana in an ODI. During his peak, he was not picked to play in an ODI and now he is on his way down. He is coming and bowling at around 130kph on those slow wickets and is getting pounded all around. The slow ball is effective when the opposition is giving the charge and that charge does not come in the ODI format anymore with the change in the power plays. Now, teams try to give the charge between the 35-40th overs because they know the moment an extra fielder goes out in the third power play it is very difficult to score runs. These are all changes in dynamics of the sport to which the selectors are blind. Are we going to play Udana two years down the line in the 2023 World Cup? Even Dasun Shanaka is ill-equipped to play the Bangladesh spinners. In this game it’s about skill. You have it or you don’t have it.

For Sri Lanka to be humiliated like this against Bangladesh is unpardonable. In any sport there is a winner and a loser. But you don’t lose by 103 runs without even challenging their total, which was a modest 246.

The selectors, it seems, have got everything muddled up. With the squad that they have taken there is very little corrective action you can take for the third ODI as well. The advisory panels appointed by the Sports Minister short circuited all the processes, all the Sports Laws. They held a gun to the Minister’s head so now let them deliver. At some point, somebody has to turn around and explain.

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