SI Cricket Talks
David beats Goliath
by Shazeen Ifamy
Sri Lanka’s series vs Afghanistan started as David vs Goliath with Afghanistan being Goliath but ended like the story itself with Sri Lanka being David defeating Afghanistan! The series began with a comfortable win for Afghanistan by six wickets chasing 269. With that said, the Sri Lankans with their back against the wall bounced back to win the second match by mammoth 132 runs after setting Afghanistan a target of 324 to win. And with the series all tied up at one apiece, Sri Lanka lead the killer blow to Afghanistan on the back of an impressive bowling performance to win the third match by nine wickets with 204 balls left chasing a modest 117 runs to seal the series two to one! With all the above said, shall we now take a deeper analysis of the series? We shall!
To begin with, Sri Lanka will be happy with their performance throughout this series as they were able to address some key issues of theirs in the series especially the batting aspect as they were able to bat the full quota of 50 overs in the first two games and where able to deliver a strong chasing performance in the third game. However, despite the batting improvements, Sri Lanka would want to improve their dot ball percentage as they played out too many dot balls, especially in the first game which in turn led to scoring a below-par total. On the other hand, Afghanistan will be disappointed with their batting performance as it was a mixed bag throughout the series as it only really turned up in the first game and failed to deliver in the last two games. Nevertheless, Afghanistan will be happy with their shining light in Ibrahim Zadran, who consistently scored runs throughout the series and finished as the top run scorer with 174 runs in three matches at an average of 58.
Moving on to the bowling and fielding front, Afghanistan will once again be disappointed with their performance as asides from the first game, their bowling and fielding looked ordinary which cost them the series as a result. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, will be extremely happy with their bowling and fielding performance as they were able to consistently take wickets and build pressure in the field. Asides from this, Sri Lanka will be happy with the return of Dushmantha Chameera as his presence boosted the Sri Lankan bowling unit with Chameera himself fishing with six wickets in two games and was awarded the man of the series award.
Overall, this series wasn’t as thrilling as many thought it would be, as Sri Lanka in the end won it with relative ease on the back of some good all-rounded performances by them in all the key areas hence ticking some important boxes in their preparation for ICC World Cup qualifiers. For Afghanistan, this series wasn’t ideal for their World Cup preparation and they will turn back to the drawing board to finale their preparations. So, there you have it! An in-depth analysis of the series, both Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, each respectively will take from this series both positives and areas to improve on.
Lastly, congratulation to Sri Lanka for winning the series!
SI Sports Talks
sicrickettalks@gmail.com