Will we ever learn?
There were moments of joy for Sri Lanka during the ended ODI series that ended in a 0-2 defeat, but can they ever overcome from the recent trauma?
After an embarrassing exit from the 2015 tournament, England schemed its journey from the dumps to the pinnacle through sheer resilience, determination, and teamwork. Four years later, history was dramatically made when England beat New Zealand to win the ICC Cricket World Cup, their first global title.
But that’s in England. Here, in Sri Lanka, the story is darkly different. Four years after exiting the tournament in the first round, things have plummetted further. The team has failed to earn one of the eight direct qualifying positions for the World Cup 2023, after losing the series against New Zealand 2-0.
Sri Lanka needed a 3-0 win to safely occupy the eighth spot in the ranking. Even a 1-1 result after the washed out second game would have given them an outside chance. But a familiar batting collapse handed New Zealand a convincing 6-wicket win on Friday–Sri Lanka’s fifth straight defeat in 2023.
The failure to earn direct qualification and more importantly the manner in which they fought the battle has sent shock waves among the cricket fraternity.
Questions are being raised as to what ails Sri Lanka cricket—the country’s favourite pastime—and the contingencies that need to be taken to qualify. The blame game, too, has started with selectors to coaches and players being singled out.
Who is actually responsible? Is it the selectors? If so, sack them and install a new committee. But hadn’t that been done often over the last seven years? There were at least four sets of selectors since 2016. Did these changes make the impact Sri Lanka longed for? The results show otherwise.
If the reason is the coach, sack him and get a new one–even at the cost of an arm and a leg. Didn’t we have four coaches since Graham Ford’s re-entry in 2016, including Chandika Hathurusingha, Sri Lanka’s highest paid head coach? Mind you, this is without the interim arrangements, when Nic Pothas, Jerome Jayaratne, and Rumesh Ratnayake stepped in.
If it’s the captain, then take him out and give it to an able leader. Whether we have one is a different question. Didn’t we have Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Lasith Malinga, Thisara Perera, Dimuth Karunaratne, Kusal Janith Perera, Upul Tharanga and even Chamara Kapugedara leading the side at various intervals during the last seven years before Dasun Shanaka took over in mid-2021?
If it is the administrators, hold them responsible and make the required changes to stop further decline. Haven’t we had different people running the board at different intervals, including those who made their entry through interim administration?
The question is, did these changes bring an end to the slide, even temporarily, or did they just make things worse? The latter seems the most plausible.
There’s no denying that Sri Lanka’s weak domestic system has bred mediocracy over excellence. This is a major reason why consistency is lacking from the players. The side that played India and New Zealand this year looked like a pale shadow of the team that beat Australia 3-2 at home last year.
This issue is finally being addressed with the introduction of the National Super League—a five-team elite tournament. Whether Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has managed to retain its elite cricketers for the tournament is a different question given the cramped-up international calendar, but it is expected to have a positive impact in the years to come. But for now, Sri Lanka needs quick fixes because results do matter.
Yes, India is a tough place to tour and the statistics say we have only won eight games in 44 attempts there. A side boasting Jayasuriyas, Sangakkaras, Atapattus, Jayawardenas, Dilshans and even Muralidaran had 6-1 defeat in 2005 before going to become one of the best white-ball sides thereafter.
But this team is contrastingly different. Apart from those odd sparks, they have not been consistent. Sri Lanka is as good as any other team in the world but they are not consistent. Even on Friday, their approach to the game was disastrous as they gave their wickets away on a platter. Pathum Nissanka played a brilliant knock until he sacrificed his wicket by attempting to take a run that was never there. The shot selections of Dasun Shanaka, Dhananjaya de Silva, and Wanindu Hasaranga were inexplicable, more like guerrillas on a suicide mission.
Since 2016, Sri Lanka has lost 70 ODI games out of 115 they played, including 23 losses in 29 games in 2017. However, the statistics show that the team was on an upward march in 2022 recording a winning percentage of 60, the best after 2014 when Mahela Jayawardena was leading the side.
As former cricketer-turned commentator Russell Arnold, pointed out in “Chilling with Russell” show, shouldn’t the players be held accountable for the questionable performances? In the last three games, Sri Lanka was bowled out for 73, 76, and 157 and there’s no denying that this team can do much better than the scores reflects. Even the team’s batting coach Naveed Nawaz conceded it was hard to stomach how they fought the battle more than the final outcome in the series.
But then what’s the issue? Is it because Sri Lanka put more weight on T20 cricket during the last two years that they neglected the ODI format? With two back-to-back World Cups in 2021 and 2022, there was more emphasis and, to their credit, some improvements have been made in the format but not in ODI cricket.
Shouldn’t the whole culture of the team and the tone of Sri Lanka’s attitude towards one-day cricket be rewired? Should Sri Lanka encourages its players to go to foreign Twenty20 tournaments to pick up new skills and learn to play in high-pressure environments?
Shouldn’t we identify players for specific roles and train them accordingly so that they will improve their skills and replicate them in match situations? Shouldn’t SLC do a complete review of the entire coaching structure, especially at the High Performance Centre and those in different roles with the national, Sri Lanka ‘A’, and Under-19 levels to see their contribution?
There’s not much Sri Lanka can do now for this year’s World Cup except to push them to the deep end and force them to swim the tide. But for the next World Cup in fours, Sri Lanka must start planning like how England did through sheer resilience, determination, and teamwork. After all, Sri Lankans are world champions and a team that dominated the world from 2007 to 2014 in white-ball cricket. They are better than this.