England v Sri Lanka: Headingley clash a must-win for side struggling with internal rifts at the World Cup
The World Cup hasn’t quite gone to plan for Sri Lanka.
A 34-run win over Afghanistan aside, the last three weeks have been an unhappy period for 1996 tournament winners, who meet England at Headingley tomorrow desperately needing a victory to revive faint hopes of a semi-final place.
They began the competition with a 10-wicket thrashing by New Zealand before beating Afghanistan, sitting out two rained off fixtures with Pakistan and Bangladesh, and returning for a disappointing 87-run loss to Australia.
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Lasith Malinga may still be there, lumbering in to bowl his distinctive slingy yorkers to provide a connection to past exploits, but the glory days of Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene feel long gone.
Instead the current crop, if they don’t drastically improve their results, are set to be defined by a revolving selection policy, political infighting, anti-corruption bans, apparent disinterest and indisputable dysfunction.
Had they been forced to qualify for the tournament, like Afghanistan and West Indies, it’s possible they might not even have made it.
While sides like England have been busy settling on personnel and a playing style, Sri Lanka have been indiscriminately trying 52 different players since 2017’s Champions Trophy.
Their captain, Dimuth Karunaratne, is the eighth man to be given the job in one-day internationals since the 2015 World Cup – which is coincidentally the last time he played the format before being selected.
Their chairman of selectors, Sanath Jayasuriya, was banned in February for two years for breaching anti-corruption code. In January, all-rounder Thisara Perera wrote a letter to Sri Lankan cricket’s chief executive describing the side as a “laughing stock of a whole country” after ex-captain Malinga’s wife accused him of only being in the team because of the sports minister’s influence.
It’s hardly surprising amid this context of selection roulette and turmoil that the performances have been uniformly sub-standard. Another former skipper, Angelo Mathews, has been a shadow of his former self, making a grand total of nine runs in three innings – but he’s far from the only one.
Once you look past the opening partnership of Karunaratne and Kusal Perera, who have scored well at the top, it’s a line-up screaming of underperformance.
It’s all the more galling considering many of these players featured in two of Sri Lanka’s finest moments: five of the current squad played in the Twenty20 World Cup final win over the West Indies in 2012 and six featured in the historic Test series victory in South Africa back in February.
Yet if they lose to in-form England tomorrow their final three matches could be when the wheels well and truly come off.