Is this the lowest point in Sri Lankan cricket?

[barah_admi]

They have no truly world class players to speak of in the test arena, have looked vulnerable to everything from pace to swing to fielding and are currently staring a 3-0 white wash (at home) in the face.

One of cricket's great modern nations, home of Murali, Sangakkara, Jayawardene and co has reached a low not many could have imagined just five years ago.

Problems with the board, corruption, player disputes and poor selection have trampled over the game that nation loves so...can they recover? And if so, who are the players to help them do it?

 

[Sin Nombre]

Herath has just retired and Root is world class in winning tosses.

They are not as bad as the 3-0 scoreline suggests.

 

[barah_admi]

Herath has just retired and Root is world class in winning tosses.

They are not as bad as the 3-0 scoreline suggests.

Winning a toss does not make you win test matches, it also doesn't make you collapse time and time again and have bowlers with the penetration of a plastic fork.

 

[Markhor]

There's so much indiscipline and sloppiness that's crept into their game. Look at these no-balls that's cost them in this Test. From fitness to fielding, the team lags way behind.

They need to do what Pakistan did in 2010 in going back to basics. Become hard to beat and at least make your home a fortress. Get in batsmen who will graft and put a price on their wicket.

Ultimately the administrators are to blame for years of corruption, ineptitude and neglect of their domestic cricket. They punched above their weight as long as stars like Murali, Sangakkara, Jayawardene, Dilshan and Herath were around - but there wasn't enough talent groomed underneath. There's even more political interference in the running of the board than in Pakistan, and the country as a whole is going through political turmoil which doesn't help.

 

[BreadPakoda]

Horrible cricket by the Lankans. Sandakan's lack of discipline reminded me of the day they let Rohit amass 264 in an ODI. Poor fielding, poor bowling. Really need to reverse this trend.

Also to be fair to them batting last is never easy anywhere and they've had some really poor luck with the toss.

 

[Sin Nombre]

Winning a toss does not make you win test matches, it also doesn't make you collapse time and time again and have bowlers with the penetration of a plastic fork.

They would have won the 2nd test if they had batted first.

Every team in the modern game crumbles under scoreboard pressure. Teams are not even able to chase 200 these days.


Agree with markhor that indiscipline has creeped up in their game but those are teething problems.

 

[Sin Nombre]

I think India losing 4-1 in England has led to some loss of perspective on the importance of tosses in modern test cricket.

India would have likely won in SA 2-1 and went into the 5th test 2-2 in England if they had won an even share of tosses rather than 1 in 8.

Pakistan would be leading the series against NZ rather than chasing at this point.


Team batting first wins 95% of close test matches.

 

[asifp]

People are directing their skills towards the T20 game so they can make the $$$.

Ultimately everything will follow the money. Are we really surprised this is happening?

India, England and Australia pay their Test cricketers huge sums of money, but all other countries I expect the skills to decline over time.

 

[ILcricket]

In my opinion the weakest SC Test team barring Afghanistan .

 

[Joseph Gomes]

Herath has just retired and Root is world class in winning tosses.

They are not as bad as the 3-0 scoreline suggests.

If you need toss to win tests at home, you should stop playing tests. This is THE era of home bullying. No excuse is acceptable.

 

[Gabbar Singh]

Lowest point of Sri Lankan cricket will come in the next few months when the full extent of their match fixing scandal is exposed.

 

[MenInG]

http://www.srilankacricket.lk/news/new-selection-panel-appointed

Media Release

25th November, 2018

Minister of Sports Honorable Faiszer Musthapa met with Mr. Graeme Labrooy and the rest of the members of the previous National Selection Panel this afternoon at his office and thanked them for the services rendered towards Sri Lanka Cricket, as national selectors.

In the meantime; Honorable Minister, as per the recommendations of the Cricket Advisory Committee appointed a new National Selection Panel.

The following are the members of the new Panel.

Asantha De Mel – Chairman
Brendon Kuruppu
Hemantha Wickramaratne
Chaminda Mendis.
The first task of the new selection panel will be to select the squad for the upcoming New Zealand tour.

 

[moghul]

In my opinion the weakest SC Test team barring Afghanistan .

And Bangladesh.

 

[pmahones]

Its all BCCI's fault!

 

[barah_admi]

http://www.srilankacricket.lk/news/new-selection-panel-appointed

Media Release

25th November, 2018

Minister of Sports Honorable Faiszer Musthapa met with Mr. Graeme Labrooy and the rest of the members of the previous National Selection Panel this afternoon at his office and thanked them for the services rendered towards Sri Lanka Cricket, as national selectors.

In the meantime; Honorable Minister, as per the recommendations of the Cricket Advisory Committee appointed a new National Selection Panel.

The following are the members of the new Panel.

Asantha De Mel – Chairman
Brendon Kuruppu
Hemantha Wickramaratne
Chaminda Mendis.
The first task of the new selection panel will be to select the squad for the upcoming New Zealand tour.

Let's see what they can do... If anything.

I think the larger concern is they lack in the bowling department and can't seem to find anyone approaching world level.

 

[Hasan123]

Being whitewashed by a team who struggles away from home is very poor. Thought Sri Lanka would compete better in the tests.

 

[gazza619]

SL are no match for England I am afraid.

SL are weak but this England team looks extremely strong. It would have also challenged the great SL team of the 90s in my opinion.

 

[barah_admi]

SL are no match for England I am afraid.

SL are weak but this England team looks extremely strong. It would have also challenged the great SL team of the 90s in my opinion.

England are coming off of a very shaky away run since their win over the saffers in 2016. They have not been a good touring side for a while now but they have playedo ut of their skin in this series, against a low quality opposition.

That is not to say the current ENgland team can not get better, they can and if some of the batsmen are allowed to prosper and replacements for Jimmy and Broad are found, they will.

 

[Savak]

TBH, Mathews failure to kick on as Sri Lanka's most elite and dependable batsman after the retirement of Sanga and Jaywardene has really hurt the team. The whole team just is not playing as a unit or for their country.

 

[Arham_PakFan]

TBH, Mathews failure to kick on as Sri Lanka's most elite and dependable batsman after the retirement of Sanga and Jaywardene has really hurt the team. The whole team just is not playing as a unit or for their country.

Can't really fault the poor guy, he is either injured or coming off from injury.

 

[Savak]

Can't really fault the poor guy, he is either injured or coming off from injury.

He doesn't help his cause by being fat and overweight. It doesn't appear like he lives a very professional lifestyle off the field. The Sri Lankan board and coaches got fed up of his casual approach to the game and stripped him of the captaincy and dropped him from the team to make him work hard again.

 

[ElRaja]

sri lanka was a minnow nation that developed a unique brand of cricket which became an identity from ground up. attacking, ingenious and surprisingly confrontational.

the whole cricket system bought into the brand and young players were brought into teams with seniors who esposed ranatungas mental strength and toughness.

nearly all of sri lankas world class players debuted under his captaincy, and those who didnt debuted in his presence. jayasuriya, Hashan Tillakaratne, de silva, murali, vaas, herath, jarawardene, sanga, attapatu, theres pbly more.

talented players have come after but they are mentally inferior to that generation, and that was down to ranatungas leadership imo, i could never imagine malinga giving up on test cricket under ranatunga, or mendis's career being cast aside as it was.

they havnt even replaced one of those players, all of whom would walk into the current test xi. in hindsight the supposed system (schools, colleges, clubs, etc) wasnt as good as the authorities thought, and ranatungas leadership hid a lot of deficiencies.

 

[ezhil]

Certainly rock bottom .will they ever get up and win another world cup .it almost impossible

 

[MMHS]

Personally, I believe SRL has lots more positives to take from this series than being demoralized. They lost one of the greats of the game after 1st Test and lost all 3 tosses on such wickets, yet made the last 2 Tests as close as it can be. And, I believe both Tests were lost for a foolish run out at a critical time, otherwise they should have won at least one of the two.

This is a good ENG team for sure & they were well prepared this time for Asian condition - they picked a spinner on bowling merit & were ruthless enough to drop Curren, Berbi, Johnny or Jimmey when required. Apart from IND, I doubt how many contemporary teams could avoid 3-0 against them after losing 3 tosses on such conditions, but lankans made it really close. And, they were without regular Captain Chandimal as well, who is among their best players.

I’ll say they are just one good pacer & an opener away from becoming a top side at home. They can open with Dhananjaya with Karuna and play one more solid No. 3 (their recent U19 batsman is a fantastic prospect) - I back them to blank Sarfraz’s PAK again, at least in home series.

 

[Last Monetarist]

Personally, I believe SRL has lots more positives to take from this series than being demoralized. They lost one of the greats of the game after 1st Test and lost all 3 tosses on such wickets, yet made the last 2 Tests as close as it can be. And, I believe both Tests were lost for a foolish run out at a critical time, otherwise they should have won at least one of the two.

This is a good ENG team for sure & they were well prepared this time for Asian condition - they picked a spinner on bowling merit & were ruthless enough to drop Curren, Berbi, Johnny or Jimmey when required. Apart from IND, I doubt how many contemporary teams could avoid 3-0 against them after losing 3 tosses on such conditions, but lankans made it really close. And, they were without regular Captain Chandimal as well, who is among their best players.

I’ll say they are just one good pacer & an opener away from becoming a top side at home. They can open with Dhananjaya with Karuna and play one more solid No. 3 (their recent U19 batsman is a fantastic prospect) - I back them to blank Sarfraz’s PAK again, at least in home series.

I think toss is a convenient excuse, Sri Lanka were comfortably second best in this series. None of their batsmen were able to score a century, the English trio outbowled the Sri Lankan spinners, England's fielding close to the wicket was phenomenal, and the Sri Lankan running between the wickets was ordinary at times.

The margin was close because Sri Lanka were at home and playing in familiar conditions, and I don't think that's a positive. I seriously believe that it will be harder for England to win a series in the UAE or Bangladesh.

 

[MMHS]

I think toss is a convenient excuse, Sri Lanka were comfortably second best in this series. None of their batsmen were able to score a century, the English trio outbowled the Sri Lankan spinners, England's fielding close to the wicket was phenomenal, and the Sri Lankan running between the wickets was ordinary at times.

The margin was close because Sri Lanka were at home and playing in familiar conditions, and I don't think that's a positive. I seriously believe that it will be harder for England to win a series in the UAE or Bangladesh.

They were missing few players also and their game plan was built on batting first. You have to recall my post that this a very good English side and they are coming after playing a hard fought series against 2 very good Asian sides.

I think, toss is the biggest factor here - at least a 100 run swing. ENG’s tail put valuable runs but, this tail whagging often works when you bat first - this can be proven statistically. Take the last END-IND series - their tail win two tight Tests batting first, but not much at Trentbridge batting 2nd. And, you have feel sorry for Lanka as well if a dabutane wins man of the series. I should mention that SAF is equally good side like ENG, if not slightly better, and they were blown away by same SRL team, batting first; therefore toss was indeed a critical factor for their core tactics.

I have seen some part of the series and I think SRL is just trying to get into Test game again. For few years, their game has been confusing between 3 formats, but Hathura has installed a Test discipline in their game. They can build lot from this - a hard fought tight loss to a good team is far better preparation than hammering a weak side. I think, most SRL fans should take this series positively than negatively.

 

[RedwoodOriginal]

Before this series Sri Lanka was atleast beating non-Asian teams like South Africa and Australia in their backyard. Now they can't even do that and things aren't going to get any easier in the next few months with upcoming tours of Australia and South Africa.

At the same time though credit must be given to England who were not only spot-on with their selections but also employed an attacking approach to spin-bowling rather than succumbing to it like South Africa or Australia. Also helps when your batting is this deep. A number of times they were bailed out by Foakes, Curran, Rashid who bat at 7, 8 and 9.

 

[SLcric123]

Sadly this is true. Things are going nowhere. Moeen Ali and Jack Leach have run through us. So, no excuse really.

 

[Last Monetarist]

They were missing few players also and their game plan was built on batting first. You have to recall my post that this a very good English side and they are coming after playing a hard fought series against 2 very good Asian sides.

I think, toss is the biggest factor here - at least a 100 run swing. ENG’s tail put valuable runs but, this tail whagging often works when you bat first - this can be proven statistically. Take the last END-IND series - their tail win two tight Tests batting first, but not much at Trentbridge batting 2nd. And, you have feel sorry for Lanka as well if a dabutane wins man of the series. I should mention that SAF is equally good side like ENG, if not slightly better, and they were blown away by same SRL team, batting first; therefore toss was indeed a critical factor for their core tactics.

I have seen some part of the series and I think SRL is just trying to get into Test game again. For few years, their game has been confusing between 3 formats, but Hathura has installed a Test discipline in their game. They can build lot from this - a hard fought tight loss to a good team is far better preparation than hammering a weak side. I think, most SRL fans should take this series positively than negatively.

Yes, of course, the toss had an effect. Maybe Sri Lanka would have won a test if they had won all three tosses, but I feel England would still have been able to compete as their spin attack is at another level to teams such as South Africa. Moreover, the South African batting was woeful last summer and they deserved to be thrashed. I don't think that was down to batting second or anything.

It's not as if the pitches were crumbling and batting last was impossible, or even like the UAE where teams usually bat first and put a huge total on the board which results in scoreboard pressure. You've seen England batsmen hold their hands up and score runs under pressure in the second innings when the match was still in the balance (Jennings in the first test, Root in the second, and Buttler in the third test). I don't think that's a coincidence as Sri Lanka allowed England to capitalize at crucial moments because of ordinary cricket.

To be honest, I see Sri Lanka struggling across all formats for the forseeable future. This series whitewash is a major setback for them, which would probably be compounded with heavy defeats in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa this winter.