To be a serious contender for the Asia Cup and World Cup, Sri Lanka need more firepower at Nos. 6 and 7
Andrew Fidel Fernando06-Sep-2023Thirty-eight overs into their innings, Sri Lanka were 221 for 4, with Kusal Mendis on 92, and Dhananjaya de Silva on 14. From here, teams frequently blast their way well beyond 300. Or, at least are expected to.Just as a rough comparison, on Sunday, in Bangladesh’s match against the same opposition, in the same stadium, they had had 222 for 2 on the board after 38 overs, and went on to post 334 for 5. Because they had eight wickets in hand, they had more batting resources to burn, of course.Still, 72 balls left, your hitters to come in, this is when the best teams slip into their batting bully mode, and show those weakling bowlers who’s boss. From this position, the best kinds of ODI finishers will take down opposition quicks, eat the spinners’ sandwiches in front of them, and throw their lunchboxes into the trees so they can never be recovered. They send bowlers home with tears in their eyes and trauma that will take years to heal from, like the gods of ODI cricket intended. (These are the same gods who have taken reverse swing out of the game over the last ten years, so we know whose side they are on.)Related
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But lately, Sri Lanka haven’t had good bullies. Their top order has been decent. Charith Asalanka is a solid No. 5 batter – he averages 46.68 in that position, with a strike rate of 91.10.But this is where the problems start. No. 6 is Dhananjaya de Silva, who for all his Test-match exploits, averages 26.04 and strikes at 74.93 in his current ODI position. And then there is the big one: Dasun Shanaka, Sri Lanka’s captain, averages 25.43 at No. 7, and strikes at 86.59.Their batting numbers pale in comparison to the best in the world. Hardik Pandya averages 38.50 at No. 6 and strikes at 102.52. David Miller averages 39.51 at No. 6 and strikes at 104.73. Jos Buttler’s corresponding numbers at No. 6 are 36.00 and 109.85. These are serious death-overs bullies. The kind you fear will shove you into the urinal when you’re not looking.Both Shanaka and de Silva contribute with the ball, however. In the match against Afghanistan, de Silva closed out the game, though with no little help from Afghanistan’s own lack of awareness that they could have surpassed Sri Lanka’s net run rate even into the first ball of the 39th over. In Sri Lanka’s previous match, Shanaka took the wicket of Towhid Hridoy, and all up, has wickets in six of Sri Lanka’s last eight matches, even if he has not taken more than one in any game through that stretch, and even if many of those matches were in the World Cup Qualifier against weaker oppositions.!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();
Shanaka, though, has an especially glaring weakness with bat – his terrible numbers against legspinners. Where his regular ODI batting average is 23.38 and strike rate 93.14, he averages 12.06 against legbreak bowlers, and strikes at 82.27 against them. In this match, he got out to Rashid Khan, unsurprisingly. But before he got out himself – bowled for 5 by a fast legbreak that he had tried to sweep – he also contributed to the dismissal of Kusal Mendis, earlier in that Rashid over. Shanaka had struck the ball aerially back at the bowler, who dropped the catch, but had the ball deflect into the non-striker’s stumps before Mendis could get his bat back down in the crease.What complicates the selection for Sri Lanka is that these players have utility beyond their numbers. Shanaka is a popular captain, both within the team and among fans. He has his strategic limitations but has also helped orchestrate a lift in Sri Lanka’s ODI outcomes. The team now has 12 ODI wins on the trot, though many of those games were in the Qualifier.Under him, they have won 21 and lost only 13 matches. In the three years before he took the reins, they’d lost 29 ODIs to the 14 they had won. In T20Is, they’ve even won an Asia Cup under Shanaka.But if Sri Lanka are to become serious contenders both in the business end of this Asia Cup, and the World Cup to follow, they have to have more consistent firepower at Nos. 6 and 7. Shanaka would also rest much easier as captain if he could bully death bowlers much more regularly than he has in ODIs so far.
