Sri Lanka national squad hampered with injuries to senior players, are keeping faith in youngsters to do the job in Bangladesh in the forthcoming series. The team to most pundits looks very inexperienced, however the selectors have been smart to include players who have done exceptionally well in the recently concluded series in India.
The top three batters are in good form, and have done the bulk of scoring in the four completed ODI’s in India. Sri Lanka will hope that the top three retain their form since the middle order and the lower order have hardly contributed in India with the willow.
We now take a look at reality. In India four ODI’s yielded results, three in favor of the home team and one in favor of Sri Lanka. India will take into account, Sri Lanka despite injuries to senior players were very competitive, and were unlucky to go down 3-1. The result could have been 2-2, and with some lady luck 3-1 in favor of the visitors.
The Sri Lankan batsman accumulated 1267 runs in four innings at an average of 317 runs per match ,out of which the top three, namely Dilshan, Sangakkara and Tharanga accounted for 845 runs while the rest of the batsman, a paltry 422. These three players scored 67 percent of the total runs made. Dilshan scored 333 runs with two centuries Sangakkara accumulated 217 and was also guilty of throwing it away on all four occasions, while Upul Tharanga has set himself well, in which his personal contribution was 295 with one century and two fifties.
Kandamby batting in the middle order accumulated only 96 runs, he certainly is a much better player than what his figures indicate. Samaraweera made only 13 runs, but one must take into consideration the match situation, before pointing fingers at his capability in the shorter version of the game.
The bowling was carted around, the Indian Pitches are batsman friendly, and it was nice to note the youngsters take bulk of the scalps. Welegedera took 5 wickets, while Randiv too accounted for 5 scalps; the worry though is Kulasekera who managed only 2 wickets in three outings.
India is now out of the window, it’s a band new tour altogether, players families came to SLC head quarters and took part in the departure formalities. The Clergy invoked blessings on the team before departure, Sangakkara was very optimistic of winning the tournament.
He stated that he misses some of the senior players, but in the same breath added that he is taking the best team available, and the youngsters included in the squad deserve a look in, and are ready for the big stage. He went onto to state that the door is wide open for players to cement their place and be counted.
These youngsters whom we are taking on tour have done exceptional well in the domestic season, hence don’t be surprised if some of these guys put immense pressure on the seniors who are left out of this tour due twin reasons.
I was very happy to speak to young Lahiru Thrimanne; he came with his mother, a very modest and a humble human.
He was very happy that he got an opportunity, to play at this level; he was very excited about the tour and stated that he will give more than a hundred percent not for personal glory, but for the country. Lahiru is an exciting and an orthodox player, very similar to Rohit Sharma of India, hopefully the young man will play his natural game, if he does that we will see a lot of this youngster in the future.
