Lanka can ill-afford to drop a single game against Afghanistan

Sri Lanka and Afghanistan last met in an ODI match in the 2019 World Cup at Cardiff, Sri Lanka won by 34 runs  

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka’s white ball team will shift gears from T20 format to the 50-over format when they take on Afghanistan in a series of three matches commencing at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium from tomorrow.

For the past five months, Sri Lanka has been heavily involved in T20 cricket with a home series against Australia (which they lost 1-2), the Asia Cup in UAE (where they emerged champions) and the T20 World Cup in Australia (where they failed to qualify for the knockout stage).

The ODI series against Afghanistan – the first bilateral series between the two countries is one that Sri Lanka can ill-afford to drop a single match because of the precarious position they are currently placed in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Super League 2020-23 standings.

Sri Lanka occupy 10th position in the Super League table with 62 points and a minus net run rate. The upcoming series against Afghanistan followed by another three-match ODI series against New Zealand in March are the only remaining matches Sri Lanka has to complete their quota of 24 ODI matches in the Super League. 

So it is imperative that Sri Lanka make the maximum use of their remaining six matches to push themselves up the table because only the top eight teams at the end of the Super League will gain automatic qualification for the 2023 fifty-over World Cup in India next October.

West Indies have completed all their fixtures and are placed in eighth position with 88 points. But they could find themselves finishing even lower when teams 9, 10 and 11 – Ireland (68 points, 3 matches to play), Sri Lanka (62 points – 6 matches to play) and South Africa (59 points – 8 matches to play) complete their respective fixtures.

A win carries 10 points and a No Result or Abandoned match 5 points for each team.

Sri Lanka’s recent record in ODIs is quite encouraging. They have played two ODI series at home against Zimbabwe in January and against Australia in June and won both by margins of 2-1 and 3-2 respectively.

Unfortunately for Sri Lanka, their win over Australia does not count as part of the Super League, which would have otherwise helped them immensely towards improving their position in the standings.

If Sri Lanka can make a clean sweep of the series against Afghanistan the 30 points they will gain from that win will lift them to eighth position displacing West Indies. Afghanistan on the other hand are nicely placed to gain automatic qualification as they are currently in seventh position with 100 points and have a further 12 matches to complete their cycle. In their last ODI series played in January, Afghanistan beat Zimbabwe 3-0 in Harare. Sri Lanka and Afghanistan have met on four occasions in Asia Cup and ICC World Cup tournaments with Sri Lanka holding onto a 3-1 advantage.