Sixers are a frequent keyword when Thisara Perera talks about his fondest memories on the cricket field. “Earlier in my career, I loved the final of the 2011 World Cup because I was able to end our innings with a six. Then there was the 2014 World Twenty20 and that match-winning six. I’ll never forget that,” he boasted. “I also hit the highest six by a Sri Lankan – 123 metres in Perth.”
Thanks to these powerful shots, Perera achieved the fourth-best strike rate of his career in ODIs (112.08) among batsmen with at least 2000 runs. His form was inconsistent, but his batting power was undeniable.
Chasing 320 against New Zealand in 2019, Sri Lanka were facing a losing effort at 128/7. With nothing left to lose, Perera went all out and scored a hundred off 57 balls, the third fastest for Sri Lanka and one of the best ODI innings in a losing cause.
The selection committee dropped Perera after a mediocre World Cup this year, and his departure left a void. Since 2019, Sri Lanka’s Nos. 6, 7 and 8 have combined for 122.72, the ninth-worst score among the top ten T20I nations.
Before the 2021 World Cup, Sri Lanka had won only seven of their last 30 completed T20Is and lost 10 of their 13 completed ODIs. While the horror show was a consequence of the instability caused by the rejuvenated restructuring of their white-ball teams and the six-month absence of Danushka Gunathilaka, Kusal Mendis and Niroshan Dickwella due to a bio-bubble breach, Sri Lanka had enough time to organize a balanced batting line-up for the 2023 ODI World Cup in India. This has unfortunately not proved to be the case for the islanders.
The development of the lower orders pales in comparison to that of the upper orders, although Sri Lanka did experiment a lot under Mickey Arthur and later Chris Silverwood. The call for stability from the finishing department was so loud that top-five players who had settled into their batting positions were pulled out and moved further down the order, such as Dinesh Chandimal and Charith Asalanka. However, Sri Lanka have not yet removed the thorn in their side that is the inability to consolidate the upper orders’ starts.
An opening stand of 125 runs was wasted as they lost 10 wickets for just 84 runs in the 2023 ODI World Cup against Australia. Sri Lanka were 140/1 after 14 overs in a chase for 214 but then lost nine wickets for 30 runs in the recently concluded T20I series against India. Likewise, from a fluttering starting stand of 130/2 after 15 overs, they lost seven wickets for just 31 runs.
Dasun Shanaka, Sri Lanka’s designated finisher in recent years, has scored 119 in 48 T20I innings as No. 6 and 110 in 20 matches as No. 7. He can produce blizzards, most notably the 54 in 25 balls against Australia that snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, but these dazzling performances have been the exception rather than the rule. He picked up a Diamond Duck and a Golden Duck in the T20Is in India.
All-rounder Wanindu Hasaranga’s batting performance is not convincing at international level and Sri Lanka is hoping that he will do well rather than have any conviction.
Partly due to the lethargy of the lower orders, Sri Lanka have hit just 238 sixes in 69 ODIs since 2021. India, on the other hand, have hit 430 maximums in 68 matches during this period. England have hit 424 sixes in 66 T20Is, while Sri Lanka have hit just 311 in 67 T20Is as of 2021.
This statistical gap could be narrowed in the coming years as the Lanka Premier League has introduced the Power Blast rule, which is very similar to the BBL’s Power Surge rule. The new rule in the LPL will force the fielding captain to bring an extra fielder into the crease during the Power Blast overs, incentivizing the batters to attempt the big shots. As expected, the results have already shown in the first season: the Boundary Tracker showed 724 fours and 372 sixes in the 2024 season, compared to 589 fours and 222 sixes in 2023.
But Sri Lanka currently has a major conversion problem. Even in the warm-up matches before the 2023 ODI World Cup, the foundation laid by the top order has hardly been built upon. Against Bangladesh, Sri Lanka scored just 131 runs after the 20th over. Against Afghanistan, they went from 240/2 in the 30th over to 294 runs.
The lack of cooperation from the lower ranks hurts Sri Lanka beyond the immediate consequences, because knowing that the lower ranks are not contributing can induce a safety mentality in the upper ranks, which is not at all ideal in a team environment like Sri Lanka’s, where the players can be a little selfish at times due to the constant overload.
In the early stages of their development as an international team, Sri Lanka were faced with the challenge of competing effectively against countries with a lot of experience, larger talent pools and deeper pockets. They concluded that if they followed the herd they were doomed to failure.
So Sri Lanka decided to think outside the box. Since then, the country has followed a conscious policy of avoiding unorthodox approaches and instead trying to be innovative and improvisational whenever possible.
They have an eye and affinity for players with unique techniques and tend to make these X-factor cricketers faster than
those who adhere more closely to the prevailing opinion. Muttiah Muralitharan, Lasith Malinga, Ajantha Mendis and Tillakaratne Dilshan, the inventor of the Dilscoop, were all exceptional figures who went on to have successful, narratively groundbreaking careers.
The world first saw the impact of this left-field approach at the 1996 Cricket World Cup, when Sri Lanka used attacking openers to exploit the limitations of fielding at the start of the innings. At that time, 50 or 60 runs in the first 15 overs of an ODI was considered reasonable. Sri Lanka scored 117 runs in the first 15 overs against India, 123 against Kenya and 121 against England. Players of the tournament Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana redefined scoring patterns and pushed the boundaries of one-day cricket.
In all five World Cup finals up to that point, the teams that batted first had been crowned winners, but Sri Lanka went against the grain and chose to bowl to the mighty Australians. In another emphatic display of stubbornness, they chased down a total of 241 to secure the game’s biggest prize.
Given their historic achievements, can Sri Lanka find an ingenious solution to their problems in the final reckoning? Their performance-hungry top team would at least hope so.
