Battered and bruised, Sri Lanka carry an all gloomy picture to ride of two consecutive defeats and as predictably gloomy 77 per cent cloudy night rain forecast and 8 per cent thunder storm Southampton scenario in as centrally getting past the biggest bug England in tonight’s third and final T20.
Southampton it is that figured in the World Test Championship final play off between winners New Zealand and India in a highly bad weather marred game that went into the extra sixth day.
The heavily loaded dice smacks of nothing short of going past the tip of an iceberg In that pride redeeming play off for the Lankan skipper Kusal Janith Perera and his charges. There aren’t any heartening buoying elements for the Lankan camp, but of shedding the defeatist to restoring an element of pride. That defeatist element is driven by the media tag in English corridors of a Sri Lankan outfit playing poor cricket in recent times underscored by a 2-1 ODI loss to Bangladesh last time out.
Moreover, the Lankans need to back their new look outlook accentuation which has been a let down going by the poor results witnessed. Therein, it is a handicap as much with no players of in-depth experience with not an Angelo Mathews or sort in the ranks to speak of or Dimuth Karunaratne.
In that perspective, breaking free is the challenging name of the game for the new brigade in not only stopping an ominous England clean sweep, but to tucking into a back seat the old guard that might have been. Still significantly, here is a cast not short of talent hailing from a land whose cricketers did bug the English masters of the game to cricket world cup glory a good 23 years before the home of cricket got their act together. While the apparent Achilles heel has got to do with coming to terms with cool English conditions, that factor must essentially be a thing of the past in the highly professional lane of international cricket where it should be of the caliber capable to adopting to any given conditions. That is where essentially expertise guiding tutelage of the coaching staff comes to play.
That leggie Wanindu Hasaranga did bother the England batsmen with his spin in both games must serve as a guiding light.