As a SriLankan cricket fan it is hard to digest the losses against Bangladesh and Afghanistan. These matches against so called minnows of world cricket few years back was a just a cake walk for the islanders but now. Even though Bangladesh cannot be called a minnow in any sense, SriLanka should should win that. The most dreadful scenario is that they completely struggled with bowling and batting. If one follows Lankan cricket, this trashing in the hands of low profile cricketing teams should not come as a surprise. They have been performing badly in all departments and adding to it they don't see an inspiring leader at the helm. The leadership of Mathews and Chandimal have always been defensive. Some of the tactical decisions from the coaching staff have been blunders. In the first match, when Kusal Mendis was out for duck as opener, Sangakkara and Jayawardene the senior pros of Lankan cricket from the commentary box ridiculed the decision of sending Kusal Mendis as opener when already there is tried and tested opener in the form of Kusal Perera. Few years back, during the era of Sanga and Mahela Lankan fans used to feel that Thisara Perera is the weakest link in the batting. Now the situation is that he seems like the crucial batsmen of the team. This simple scenario explains how pathetic the team of SriLanka is. We have been talking about the batting here but if you come to bowling, the situation is worst. If one has seen the Afghanistan bowling, they just bowled wicket taking wickets every ball and Lankan batsmen has been under tremendous pressure. While on the other side, when Lankans were bowling, Afghanistan players played with ease and comfort. If an upcoming nation can play them like that, you could imagine the likes of international players thrashing the bowlers to all corners. One of the best bowler Akila Dhananjaya who didn't arrive in Dubai due to personal reasons and was expected to join later in the tournament would have got shell shocked with his team performance. For any team rebuildign shall take one year or max two years, Lankan cricket team after the retirement of Sangakkara and Jayawardene on the tag of rebuilding seems to be crumbling to much lower depths.
Chandrika Haturasingha, one of the man behind the Bangladesh success in international cricket left job there prematurely when they were touring Pakistan to take up job as Lankan coach. Everyone expected miracles from him but the graph is moving in reverse direction. Everyone are interested in his next steps and the management decisions to lift the team morale. the team seems to be very low on confidence and no one seems to be bothered of taking up the responsibility.
The only positive for SriLanka is some steady performances in the Test matches and the credit would go to Rangana Herath and to Lankans bad luck he is due retirement at any point of time and troubles shall start there as well.
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