Sri Lanka’s dwindling fortunes in One-Day Internationals further deteriorated on last Friday (October 13) when the lost the first ODI against Pakistan which was their seventh defeat in a row in the 50-over format.
The Islanders arrived in UAE on the back of nine straight defeats across all formats against India at home but managed to put up a spirited performance to win the Test series 2-0.
However, they could not sustain the momentum in the first ODI, losing it by 83 runs, as captain Upul Tharanga admitted that the team is struggling for consistency.
“Since 2016 we have not played well,” Tharanga said on Sunday (October 15). “We have not been consistent. Lot of things changed. Players were changed, and we had injuries. But still, I don’t think we played to our potential. We were not consistent. We play one game well, and then we fail to live up expectations. We beat India in England in June, but since then it’s been all downhill. We have struggled for consistency,” he added.
That Sri Lanka is struggling in the ODIs is very much evident from their record at home in the last year. They had thrashed Australia 3-0 in the Test series but had gone on to lose the ODIs 4-1. The ongoing year did not bring them any respite either, as they failed to win the series against Bangladesh, suffered a shocking loss against Zimbabwe before being whitewashed by India.
They also suffered a whitewash against South Africa this year, but it did not come at home.
Batting has been the major reason for Sri Lanka’s downfall in recent times. Not even once did they manage to cross the 250-run mark against India and in the first ODI against Pakistan they were reeling at 67 for five while chasing 293 before the lower-order propelled them to a respectable 209 for eight.
“This series when it started we spoke about batting because batting has let us down over the last few series. We tried to tell the players what is their role. All the players are aware of their roles. I hope from tomorrow onwards we will come up with good batting efforts,” Tharanga said.
Speaking about the mistakes his team made in the first game, the skipper said:
“We made a few mistakes in batting. Failed to capitalize after three of our main batters had got decent starts. We fielded well, and that was something that we are happy about. We had a decent outing with the ball as well until the 35th over, but Shoaib (Malik) played really well from there.”
Tharanga concluded by speaking on the importance of one batsman batting through the innings.
“Last few seasons this has happened for us. We need a big knock from someone, and if you need big totals, someone has to bat through. Babar Azam scored a hundred for Pakistan as they got close to 300. In ODIs, one batsman needs to score big, and that is the only way forward to post decent totals,” he said.