All three of Sri Lanka’s World Cup games to date have
featured uneven batting, but only against Australia was it completely exposed.
They lost 10 wickets for just 84 runs after putting together an opening stand
of 125 runs.
Even while it’s simple to pretend that it was just a
bad day, it would be dishonest to ignore the warning indications that this
meltdown was about to occur. While the embarrassing 50 all out Asia Cup final
from last month is still vivid in people’s minds, one may counter that it was
caused by facing one of the strongest fast-bowling attacks in favourable
conditions. The performance of Sri Lanka on surfaces that are more conducive to
batters is of greater concern.
Sri Lanka has recorded totals of 263, 294, 326, 344,
and 209 if you include the two World Cup warm-up games against Bangladesh and
Afghanistan. But a closer examination reveals that each of those games featured
promising positions that were lost.
Sri Lanka scored only 131 runs against Bangladesh
after the 20th over; 294 runs against Afghanistan after the 30th over; and 115
runs against Pakistan after the final 20 overs. Even against South Africa,
there is a case to be made that Kusal Mendis might not have lost his wicket as
quickly as he did if he had received enough support from his teammates
following his explosive start.
“Despite our promising start, we deeply regret
not being able to sustain it, resulting in us being limited to a score of 209
runs,” Sri Lankan opener Pathum Nissanka said after their five-wicket
defeat to Australia. “On a wicket like this, I believe we should aim for a
total closer to 300 runs, and this was a contributing factor to our
defeat.”
“To be candid, the opposition’s bowlers
consistently hit good areas during the middle overs, which created a
challenging situation for our batsmen,” Nissanka said.
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t handle it as effectively as we would have
liked. Had we managed to play better, we could have achieved a total of
300.”
Sri Lanka’s middle and lower order need to start
contributing before it’s too late after three losses in three games. If not,
such collapses will increase in frequency regardless of the surface they play
on when the top four break under the pressure placed on them, like they did
against Australia.