Last Update on: November 10th, 2023 at 12:20 pm
The Sri Lanka cricket team had a disaster of a tournament in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023. The 1996 World Cup champions ended their World Cup campaign after suffering a defeat against New Zealand. They could only manage two wins in nine matches in the tournament. Firstly Sri Lanka had to play the qualifiers in order to qualify for the World Cup and then they performed drastically poor in the entire tournament.
Sri Lanka could only manage to defeat the Netherlands and England in the tournament. They lost against the likes of Afghanistan and Bangladesh and unexpectedly gifted the match to Pakistan in a massive chase of 345 with their misfields and dropped catches. The biggest defeat for them again came against India where they were bundled for 55 while chasing a target of 358.
Former Pakistan cricketer Hasan Raza talked about how the Sri Lankan team always looks in a hurry and due to that they lose their wickets in quick sessions. He also stated that the Sri Lanka Cricket Board will start a probe into the national team’s performance after the Asia Cup and World Cup collapse. Sri Lanka was bundled for a meager total of 50 in the Asia Cup finals against India.
“They are in a hurry and even the Sri Lankan board has talked about an analysis on the team about the team’s collapse in Asia Cup and the World Cup. There is some sort of influence that will be investigated by the committee which will sit on the Board,” stated Hasan Raza
Sri Lanka Team Lacks Consistency, Says Hasan Raza
Hasan Raza then mentioned the Angelo Mathews incident (he was given timed out against Bangladesh) and what impact it had on Mathews. Raza was quick to notice that Mathews’ body language was not looking very good against New Zealand after the incident and he eventually gave an easy catch to the slips off Santner’s delivery.
“The incident with Angelo Mathews is also noteworthy, even today his body language was not very good while playing. First, there was a slip fielder then he was removed from there, then again in Santner’s over there was a slip and he tried playing there and got out on slips,” Raza added.
Hasan Raza later revealed that the Sri Lankan Cricket Board is forming a committee of five to six members that will look into the team’s performance from the Asia Cup to the World Cup, Hasan said that the team is good at fielding and bowling but lacks consistency in batting. They don’t have the energy that other team players have.
“First the board should intervene, the Sri Lankan board has already said that they will form a five-six member committee. When the team goes back to Sri Lanka after the World Cup then look at the way they have lost since Asia Cup.”
“The team is good at fielding, good in bowling but still consistency is very important and whenever a nation is playing then the reputed names play an important part and the country that plays for reputation plays for the names that have represented them in the past. I didn’t find that quality in the Sri Lankan batting and the energy was not there,” Raza concluded.
Sri Lanka is almost out of contention for qualifying for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025. The team needs severe steps of reformation and they have to get back on their own.
