Dimuth Karunaratne too slow? SL cricket hits new low! SLC must adopt ‘horses for courses’ concept

By Harsha Amarasinghe

Strike rate has to be the only possible reason why Dimuth Karunaratne was dropped from the ODI side despite averaging 36 since the Cricket World Cup in 2019.

Sri Lanka was in shambles when he took over as captain and he guided the team reasonably well during the 50-over World Cup, performing brilliantly in very difficult conditions. However, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) introduced a new policy of promoting young players under the captaincy of Kusal Janith Perera which saw Karunaratne losing his spot in the format.

Recent results in England depicts the new policy has not turned out to be a good one at all. Sri Lanka’s scores in the first ten overs during the three ODIs were 45-4, 47-4, and 47-3. In complete contrast when compared to Karunaratne’s batting at the top in similar conditions during the Cricket World Cup 2019, scoring two half centuries and two thirty plus scores.

The elegant left hander may not be the man a team needs when they chase 350 runs, but in difficult conditions like in England, any team could rely on the former Josephian.

It is high time SLC adopt the ‘horses for courses’ concept.  

The T20 World Cup has to be the prime target of SLC at present, but England provides totally different conditions to what one would expect at the T20 World Cup, and 50 over cricket is a totally different format. So, if SLC are making experiments keeping an eye on the World Cup, it has to be at least with the 20-over game in mind, which makes it very difficult to understand how the three ODIs in England would have benefited them. It’s almost like sacrificing three ODIs for no reason. No team should play cricket for the sake of it, but the performances and planning from Sri Lanka during this tour really leaves so many unanswered questions including “What did they gain out of it?”

On really flat wickets, Sri Lanka could go with Kusal Janith Perera and Avishka Fernando because putting 300 plus on the board is vital, but in challenging places such as England, South Africa and New Zealand, Karunaratne has to be one of the openers, unless losing cricket matches is not a problem.

Bhanuka Rajapaksa is back in the mix ahead of the India tour. It would be interesting to see how he and head coach Micky Arthur could move forward after publicly criticizing each other. Rajapaksa claimed Arthur ‘has no plan’ while the head coach hit back by saying Rajapaksa is a ‘sloppy cricketer.’ Rajapaksa could be included in the squad for the India matches and Arthur is expected to hold onto his job for another series. It’s going to be some reunion!

However, Sri Lanka might look at different players for T20 captaincy with World Cup around the corner having played extremely poorly in England. Lasith Malinga can be a good option but with fitness issues, looks to be a long shot. Rajapaksa, surprisingly could also be a choice to consider being groomed to that role from his days at the Royal College while one could still be confused to not knowing what Dasun Shanaka did to lose the T20 captaincy after beating the number one T20 team a couple of years ago in their home soil with a bunch of youngsters.