Sri Lanka’s Head Coach Mickey Arthur in a pre-series virtual presser, said that it’s the batting in the middle overs that he’s focusing on during Sri Lanka’s training sessions leading up to the England series and was quite confident that the top order was settled.
“If you look at KJP, Avishka and Danushka at 1, 2 and 3, that’s pretty good, we need to drill down and get 4, 5 and 6 batting comfortably within their roles as well” Arthur said, addressing journalists.
Arthur’s thoughts may have been justified with how the batters performed in Bangladesh. In the first two ODIs, in which Bangladesh beat SL quite comfortably, it was the middle order batting that faltered.
In Bangladesh, starts provided by the top order were not capitalized and eventually the innings crumbled, as wickets started falling. In the 3rd ODI, a Kusal Perera century made sure that other batsmen could bat around him to a decent total on the board.
It was perhaps this performances which lead Arthur to believe that top order is in safe hands – which proved absolutely wrong in England.
It was Sri Lanka’s top order batting that gave-away in all 5 matches of this series so far. Scores read 3-49, 3-68, 3-29, 3-46 and 3-12 early in the innings, which meant that inexperienced middle order, who have almost zero experience facing top class bowing – let alone in English conditions, eventually crumbled under pressure.
In the 2nd ODI yesterday, SL loitered to a below par 241 – their highest total on tour, on a very true Oval surface, thanks to a measured 91 from Dananjaya de Silva and some lower order resistance rallied around Dasun Shanaka’s useful 47.
Sri Lankan’s own Kumar Sangakkara while on TV commentary in the 2nd ODI, highlighted the visitors’ batting woes against the swinging new ball.
“Clear problem here for Sri Lanka to solve. The swinging new ball. How do we get through that ? The middle with Hasaranga looks better, but the top struggle with the new ball” Sangakkara said on live commentary.
As we saw throughout the series, batting got relatively easier once the ball got older and the swing disappeared. With 5 of the 6 matches in the series already done and dusted, the coaching staff lead by Arthur may have made a misjudgment on confronting the conditions, which eventually exposed the weak point of an already fragile batting unit.