Chief Selector says SL’s biggest drawback is lack of consistency

• 7-4 combination is the way forward in upcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup says Chief Cricket Selector Upul Tharanga

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

While the Sri Lanka team management is still grappling with the issue of whether to play a 7-4 or 6-4 combination for the upcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, Chief Selector Upul Tharanga said that a 7-4 combination is the way to go forward.

“We have to go with a 7-4 combination because there are about 3 batsmen who can also bowl. They should be able to cover up the four overs of the fifth bowler.”

The batsmen whom Tharanga is probably referring to are the Captain Charith Asalanka and Kamindu Mendis who bowl spin and Dasun Shanaka, medium-pace.

Tharanga said the root problem lay not with the combination of the team but with consistency.

“The biggest drawback as I see it is lack of consistency. We are also slightly behind in reading the game and how to adjust to situations. Otherwise, I don’t see any big difference compared to other nations because this is a side that can score over 200 in one innings, which shows there is talent in the team. If you take the Asia Cup we played very well in the first round, but suddenly they fail like in the Super Fours. The lack of consistency is what we need to rectify very quickly. We have a problem when it comes to tournaments like the Asia Cup with consistency,” he said.

Giving reasons for it, Tharanga said, “The need to read the game. If you analyse our game in the past 2-3 years we concede wickets between the 7th and 12th overs. That is because we don’t rotate the singles especially against spin. When they try to play the big shots, we lose 2-3 wickets rather unnecessarily so by the 12th over we have lost about 4-5 wickets. We have to keep the momentum throughout. That is an issue we have to tackle.”

“As we are playing the T20 World Cup matches in Sri Lanka our batters must get used to working the ball to areas where they can rotate the strike when playing against spin. T20 is not a game solely reliant on hitting fours and sixes, there should be rotation of the strike and taking singles and twos during the middle period of the innings. The batsmen instead look for big shots against spin which eventually leads to their downfall.”

“It’s not big mistakes that we have in our batting but small ones. Even if we get a start in the power play, we falter in the middle overs. Not reading the game properly is the problem and how to bat according to the situation.”

Sri Lanka has a minimum of 11 T20I matches plus the Lanka Premier League (LPL) to sort out their problems before the T20 World Cup which is scheduled to take place in India and Sri Lanka from 7 February to 8 March 2026.

Tharanga said that the selectors were not looking to make any big changes to the squad that took part in the Asia Cup.

“One or two players may be changed. We plan to have a squad of about 22 for the World Cup. It is from that we have to select the team. The players who didn’t go for the Asia Cup have been under training throughout, the ones who went got a break and began training only from this week. There is an ACC Emerging Teams T20 Asia Cup coming up in November. The venue is not finalised. It is a good opportunity to test some of the players who didn’t get a chance to play in the Asia Cup.”

Sri Lanka’s next white ball series is in Pakistan where they play the host country in three ODIs and participate in a Tri-Nation T20I series with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Tharanga said the squad to Pakistan would be picked in another five days or so.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Cricket has recruited a power hitting and spin bowling coach to assist in the preparation of the team for the T20 World Cup. 

Power hitting specialist Julian Wood was appointed as the National Batting Coach for a period of one-year, effective 1 October. Wood conducted a special one-week training program with the Sri Lanka national squads early this year, assisting them in preparation for the upcoming international assignments that included the ongoing ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup.

Rene Ferdinands, a specialist in both wrist and finger spin, replaced Australian Craig Howard as the National Spin Bowling Coach from 30 September. During his two-year tenure with Sri Lanka Cricket, Ferdinands, who has also served as a biomechanics consultant for New Zealand Cricket, will lead spin bowling training, match preparation, performance analysis, and player development.