Win over Australia puts Sri Lanka in contention for a place in final

Sri Lanka celebrate their innings win over Australia at Galle

If Sri Lanka was to have hopes of qualifying for the final of the ICC World Test Championship 2021-23, Sri Lanka’s Test captain Dimuth Karunaratne once asked of his team’s chances, said that they would have to win their matches played at home and some of them away as well to garner the necessary points and the win percentage to finish in the top two of the table.

Each of the nine Test playing nations has six series to qualify – three at home and three away, consisting of a minimum of two Tests a series with a win counting as 12 points (100%), a tie six (50%) and a draw four (33.33%). Teams will be ranked on percentage of points won.

Sri Lanka started strongly by defeating West Indies at home 2-0 but suffered a 2-0 reverse in India. Sri Lanka bounced back with a 1-0 away series win in Bangladesh and have crowned it by drawing one-all with the no. 1 ranked side Australia at home. Thus, Sri Lanka has completed four of the six series each team is entitled to play.

No one expected Sri Lanka to beat Australia following their dismal performance in the first Test which they lost inside three days by ten wickets on an atrocious Galle wicket that spun from ball one on the first day. But given a decent Test pitch for the second Test at the same venue Sri Lanka outplayed Australia to win by an innings in four days.

The difference between the two wickets described by Sri Lanka’s double centurion Dinesh Chandimal: “The second Test wicket is I believe the ideal Test pitch. The first Test wicket favoured the spinners a lot. There wasn’t any help for the batsmen. On this wicket what I observed is that a batsman, a fast bowler or a spinner if you are giving your 100% there was always a chance for you to perform. 

“As a batsman I scored a double century, (Mitchell) Starc took about four wickets, then spinner Prabath (Jayasuriya) took 12 wickets which means that it was still a good Test match wicket.”

What that win over Australia has done to the World Test Championship table is that it has pushed Sri Lanka to third place giving them an outside chance of making it to the final. However, they face a tough task of improving their win percentage from the present 54.17% to make them strong contenders. South Africa who head the table and Australia who are second both have win percentages of over 70%. 

Sri Lanka has two series one at home (against Pakistan) and one away (in New Zealand, the defending champions next year) comprising a total of four Tests to achieve that target. To be in with a serious chance Sri Lanka will first of all have to blank Pakistan 2-0 and then win at least one of the two Tests in New Zealand to take their win percentage to 61.11% which may be sufficient for them to qualify provided other results go their way. Sri Lanka will be playing three consecutive Tests at Galle for the first time when the first Test against Pakistan commences here on Saturday.  

“Playing three games is good for a team. We know how the conditions are in the last few games. We don’t have to get used to the conditions.  We know how the wind is, how the wicket changes and all that. Pakistan don’t have that opportunity. It’s a big advantage for us. We need to turn that in our favour,” said Test captain Karunaratne. “Pakistan is a brilliant team. They have improved in their rankings. They will be more challenging than Australia because they play spin well.”

Like Sri Lanka, Pakistan will also fancy their chances of qualifying for a place in the World Test Championship final. They are currently fourth in the table behind Sri Lanka with a win percentage of 52.38% but have five Tests in hand at home - three against England and two against New Zealand, after the series against Sri Lanka.