Srilanka’s unfortunate run continues

The 1996 ICC World Cup champions are currently going through a lean patch, and hardly getting to win matches under the captaincy of Tillakaratne Dilshan. First it was Pakistan who ate them badly in the Middle East and currently it is South Africa who are
tearing them apart in their own back yard. Not to forget, Srilanka were also beaten by Australia at home before taking on Pakistan.

The 2011 ICC World Cup finalists have found life difficult under Dilshan despite retaining most of its players who were part of the squad in the world cup. Dilshan has also been affected badly with his new role as the Lankan skipper has only played a single
innings of note which came in a T20 game against Australia when the Aussies were on their tour.

Dilshan scored a superb century, but since then has been unable to perform at the top order. The 35-year-old failed miserably under the testing conditions in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and could not lead his side to the test or ODI series win against the Green
Shirts. The Lankan Tigers were beaten 4-1 in the ODI’s, while the only T20 was also won by Misbah-ul-Haq’s men.

Srilanka then travelled away to South Africa with an ambition of turning things around. However, Dilshan’s men did not make a good start to the series and lost the first test before bouncing back to win the second. Lanka, though, lost the third and final
test to once again finish as runners-up in a bilateral series.

Dilshan then led his team into the five-match ODI series where the Lankans are again fearing the worse. Having lost the first two ODI’s, Srilanka are now left with an uphill task of winning the remaining three ODI’s to win the series 3-2. The Blue Shirts
were simply humiliated in the first ODI after being bundled out for 43 while chasing 302. There was some improvement in the next game which the Proteas won by 5 wickets. Srilanka are expected to come hard at AB de Villier’s men, but are certain to lose out
on another trophy opportunity following their recent inconsistent run.

Srilanka’s next assignment will be the tri-series in Australia which also involves India as the third team.

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Posted by Taha Habib on Jan 16 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry