Facing the danger of losing tenth consecutive ODI match, worst in their history, Sri Lanka made a promising start in the third match today, as Openers Upul Tharanga and Niroshan Dickwela put together 59 runs in 10.5 overs with an impressive run rate of over 5.5 during the partnership.
In any part of the World, that was a good platform, from where team could eye a score of 275 or even more.
Then Came Dinesh Chandimal, after the wicket of Dickwela. By that time, Tharanga was going fluently, and all Chandimal could have done is to rotate the strike and gives the strike to the Captain.
Instead, Chandimal started Blockathon for no reason!
There were no demons in the pitch, no sharp turn, even then he just blocked ball after ball. And, effectively killed all the momentum, Tharanga and Dickwela provided to the team. His strike rate of 38.77 and one boundary in 49 balls indicates he totally messed up in the middle order.
At the same time, another Batsman, Cricket fans calls him Superman, AB De Villiers was playing the innings of a life time. Like Chandimal, he too came in middle overs, but ended with 176 runs in just 104 balls. It was an epic innings by a batting genius.
Sri Lanka were not expecting Chandimal to emulate that innings. No one can emulate De Villiers, not even Virat Kohli.
But, Sri Lanka were expecting Chandimal to anchor the innings with sensible batting. Instead, he ended up disgracefully curtailed Sri Lanka innings!
