Sri Lanka shift focus on white-ball cricket after Tests
With the postponement of LPL, SLC will play a swift four-team T20 competition
After back-to-back home Test series against Australia and Pakistan, Sri Lanka will shift focus to white-ball cricket with two major international tournaments around the corner. The hosts managed to level each two-match series against Australia and Pakistan despite losing the first Test in both.
The Asia Cup, which Sri Lanka will be host country notwithstanding a last-minute shift in venue, will be played between August 27 and September 11in UAE. It is the first of two blockbuster tournaments on the cards. Three weeks after the Asia Cup, Sri Lanka will head to Australia for the T20 World Cup where they are required to play a qualifying tournament to earn one of the two remaining slots in the main draw. The World T20 will be played between October 16 to November 13.
The Lanka Premier League (LPL) would have provided a great platform for them to fine-tune ahead of the Asia Cup but the tournament was postponed to December owing to the economic crisis. This is a huge blow in terms of preparation, as Sri Lanka look to bury the demons of the 2018 tournament from which they made a humiliating first round exit with shock defeats to Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
LPL, though a newbie among many professional T20 leagues across the world, provided opportunity for local cricketers to ply their trade among international stars and knock the door on national selections. With the LPL postponed, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) hurriedly put together a four-team invitational T20 tournament which will be played across eight days, starting from August 8, at the R Premadasa Stadium.
“Even though we have identified a possible combination of players for the Asia Cup and the World T20 tournament, it’s important that they have enough match practice going to these tournaments. So I believe, the Invitational T20 tournament will provide that to the players,” said Chief Selector Pramodya Wickremasinghe.
Sri Lanka last won the Asia Cup and the World T20 tournament in 2014. Since then, however, they have hardly been a force to reckon with at global events. Their recent T20 performances have not been impressive. Though, they showed a glimpse of promise during the T20 World Cup last year, they did not live up to expectation, winning only two games out of 11 played since October last year.
“Once the invitational tournament is over, they will resume training as a unit targeting the Asia Cup,” Wickremasinghe said.