Sri Lanka’s T20I cricket ills

Sri Lanka has to play on good batting tracks if they want to become a force again in T20I cricket

• “It would have been foolhardy to think that the present Sri Lanka T20 side would reach the semi-finals of the World Cup. Getting as far as the Super-Eights was in itself an achievement”

A lot has been said since Sri Lanka’s losses to England and New Zealand in their Super Eight matches that has resulted in their failure to secure a place in the Men’s T20 World Cup semi-finals.

Usually when a team fares badly as Sri Lanka has done, the critics are waiting to pounce like hounds calling for wholesale changes to the team, the captain, coach, selectors, the establishment etc. This has been the trend after each and every World Cup and will continue until Sri Lanka lays its hands on another World Cup silverware. For the record, Sri Lanka has not reached a final of a single ICC World Cup tournament since 2014.

It would have been foolhardy to think that the present Sri Lanka T20 side would reach the semi-finals of the World Cup. Getting as far as the Super-Eights was in itself an achievement.

Anyone following Sri Lanka’s T20I cricket will understand that the team is nowhere near as good as most of the sides competing in the World Cup. Sri Lanka has been languishing in the ICC T20I team rankings at 8th place for years and this alone tells you the inconsistency of their performances. So to think that they can magically transform that level of cricket into something extraordinary out of the blues at a World Cup is unthinkable.

The four countries that have made it to the semi-finals of the World Cup are all ranked above Sri Lanka – India (number 1), England (2), New Zealand (4) and South Africa (5).

Expectations were high that Sri Lanka could reach the semi-finals of the World Cup when they beat Australia by eight wickets in a group match played at Pallekele. But as it turned out, it was only a flash in the pan, for the next three games against Zimbabwe, England and New Zealand simply confirmed Sri Lanka’s true status in T20I cricket.     

From the outset one can see that Sri Lanka’s main downfall has been their batting. T20 cricket is all about batting and if you cannot put sufficient runs on the board you are bound to finish on the losing side quite often as Sri Lanka has.

A T20 World Cup happens once every two years and one must plan for it as soon as the previous one finishes. Whether Sri Lanka has done that for this World Cup is questionable for the way they keep shifting batsmen up and down the order without giving them a permanent slot. Maybe there are times depending on the situation you may have to make a few changes to the batting, but not the way Sri Lanka has been doing. They don’t have a settled batting line-up and that hardly gives the batsmen any confidence. The lack of self-assurance to go out there and showcase their skills is one of the reasons for the batting failures.

There are no such problems concerning bowling. Even without three of their key bowlers side-lined by injuries the replacements have done a splendid job to keep teams like England and New Zealand down to totals of 146 and 168. These are not totals that are impossible to chase down. Any other side would have done it.

Playing at home Sri Lanka were expected to use the advantage to the maximum but in recent times they have lost that. Sri Lanka are no longer the side that can consistently win at home and there are two reasons for it. The surfaces on which they play, and touring sides have got used to playing on subcontinent pitches and know how to overcome them. 

One of the reasons why the Lankan batsmen lack confidence is because they don’t trust the pitches that are prepared at home. Not only in the World Cup but even before that in the lead up matches to it. Why India is so successful in T20 cricket is because they prepare true tracks that give batsmen to go and express themselves without any fear. In Sri Lanka it is not the case, as tracks are made to assist bowlers and to win. This short term type of thinking is what has led to the downfall of the Lankan batting. Unless Sri Lanka move away from that strategy and start making genuine tracks, the batting is always bound to fail and they will keep on losing matches. No amount of specialist coaches and consultants will solve Sri Lanka’s batting issues when the root cause is the type of pitches that are prepared.

Sri Lankan batsmen are not lacking in ability to score runs as they showed in the Super-Eight match against Pakistan at Pallekele on Saturday. Given a proper batting track they can match the opposition – 419 runs were scored in 40 overs and Sri Lanka were unlucky to lose by just 5 runs. Why Sri Lanka cannot prepare pitches of this type constantly is a mystery. Sri Lanka needs to get out of the negative thought of preparing pitches only to win, if they want to become a force in T20I cricket once again.