Selection blunders, poor tactical decisions and frequently reshuffle of the batting order resulted Sri Lanka embarrassingly knocked out of the U19 world cup, after humiliating defeat against Pakistan at Whangarei on Friday.
Batting first, Sri Lanka could manage paltry 188, largely due to poor strategies and disastrous selection theories.
Sri Lanka ‘think tank’ once again inclued Santush Gunathilika by dropping Hasitha Boyagoda, team’s best batsman. Boyagoda, a stylish right-hander batman, played a match winning knock against the Afghanistan during the Asia Cup few months ago. However, Coach Roy Dias and manager Mahinda Halangoda kept him on the bench and to make things worse, asked Nipun Dananjaya to open the innings in today’s match as well, even after knowing that he never opened in his life, not even for his school sides and naturally he is a middle order batsman.
As expected, this time too, Nipun Dhananjaya struggled against quality Pakistani bowlers, and manage only 4 runs in 12 balls.
Santhush Gunathilika, whom Roy Dias and Manager Halangoda brought New Zealand as a backup opener, batted again at number 8 and failed again.
Only Allrounders Jehan Daniel (53 off 70 balls) and Ashen Bandara (37 off 56 balls) showed willingness to fight for Team, as Sri Lanka bundled out for 188 in 48.2 overs.
Chasing 189, Pakistan lost two early wickets, and was reeling on 25/2 after 4.2 overs, but useful contribution from opener Muhammad Zaid Alam (28 off 26 balls), Ali Zaryab Asif (59 off 94 balls) and Hasan Khan (24 off 45 balls) helped Pakistan to chase down the target in 43.3 overs.
Not only selection blunders, Sri Lanka knocked out due to poor strategies of team management. Roy Dias and Manager Halangoda didn’t take lessons from the defeat against Afghanistan in the previous match and opted for the same batting line up.
Morever, Sri Lanka didn’t use off spinner Nuwanidu Fernando, even though Pakistani batting line up were packed with left handers.
