Sri Lanka had an unblemished record against Zimbabwe at home. The visitors had never defeated the home team, let alone won a trophy, until their 2017 series. Even at their worst, Sri Lanka had thrashed the lower-ranked team, such was their dominance on home soil.
But this changed for the first time when Zimbabwe registered a 3-2 win in the five match ODI series in 2017. It was a blow to Sri Lanka’s reputation and caused Angelo Mathews’ resignation from captaincy. What ensued was disaster with the team starting to struggle to make an impression on all fronts.
The last series loss to Zim should have been the wake up call but we slept for a few more years and I guess we all know where that got us – having to quality for WC events. We need to win against Zim and win without a struggle. Once you struggle to beat the likes of Zim at home, you know you have major issues. With all respect to Zim, they are a poor side at international level much like SL and we need to beat them at home without a fuss.