Too many flaws in Sri Lanka’s cricket that need fixing

Sri Lanka Women’s Captain Chamari Athapaththu in deep thought as she watches from the dugout the match against England

Hasini Perera and Harshitha Samarawickrama need to contribute more than 30s and 40s

• Time is running out in Women’s Cricket World Cup

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

One thing that has been in favour of Sri Lanka is that they had to play the three toughest sides in the ongoing ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup to begin with.

They have got over that hurdle with two losses – to India and England – and a no-result against Australia, but for them to turn those defeats into victories in the remaining four matches, Sri Lanka have some inadequacies which they need to overcome pretty fast.

What we saw in Sri Lanka’s defeats against India and England is that they dropped catches at vital stages of the game that had a great bearing on the final result. Against India, four catches were put down that helped India recover from 124-6 and post a challenging score of 269. On Saturday, against England, when their Captain Nat Sciver-Brunt was on 3, Udeshika Prabodhani dropped a catch straight to her at midwicket off Inoka Ranaweera. What a costly miss it turned out to be, for Sciver-Brunt went onto score a run-a-ball century (117) and take England past the 250-run mark – a figure they didn’t seem capable of achieving at one stage when they were 168-6 after 35 overs. These crucial lapses on the field have had a telling effect on the Lankan side.

Two other areas they need to improve are bowling and batting. 

In bowling, the bowlers need to constantly bowl wicket to wicket. Anything outside it, the batters take the chance to score runs knowing very well that they will not become victims to an lbw. This has been a common feature even with the men’s team. It is simply baffling that a bowler cannot consistently bowl six balls wicket to wicket. Look at the discipline of the other top sides – how well they bowl their overs wicket to wicket and make the batter take all the risks if they want to score.

In batting, Sri Lanka cannot win matches by their key batters scoring 30s and 40s. They need to convert them into fifties and hundreds if they are to compete with the rest of the teams. Sri Lanka’s highest individual score so far is 43 by Chamari Athapaththu against India in the opening game.

Although the team management keeps on insisting that there has been a change to their batting, as other players have taken on the responsibility of winning matches with their own bat, the fact still remains that unless the Sri Lankan skipper uses her vast experience and comes up with a big contribution, her team will not achieve the results they are looking for. She has to lead the way for others to follow. The fact is that the rest of the Sri Lankan batters will bat around Athapaththu if she scores, not otherwise.

Although players like Harshitha Samarawickrama and Vishmi Gunaratne have scored hundreds in WODIs apart from Athapaththu, they still don’t have that depth of experience to play on a world stage and score the runs. The hundreds Harshitha and Vishmi scored were against Ireland in a bilateral series.

At the beginning of the World Cup, Sri Lanka had been rather excited about the prospect of reaching the last four of the competition, as they are playing the majority of their matches at home in familiar surroundings and pitches, but as England showed on Saturday, they too have in their arsenal (with bat and ball) to overcome slow and spin-oriented pitches of the subcontinent successfully. So, Sri Lanka will have their work cut out for them when they come up against the rest of the opposition in the tournament.

Hasini Perera, who top scored for Sri Lanka in their game against England with 35, admitted that they lost wickets due to poor shot selection and mistakes on the field.          

“After the England innings, we came out with a plan on how to chase down their total. Up to the 20th over, we were able to implement it, but from there onwards, we were unable to execute our plans properly,” said Perera.

With Perera and Samarawickrama at the wickets, Sri Lanka progressed to 95-1 in 20 overs, only to see everything fall apart with the introduction of no. 1 ranked left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone, who ripped off the middle order taking 4/17 off 10 overs. Charlie Dean and Sciver-Brunt also chipped in with two wickets apiece as Sri Lanka stumbled to 164-all out.