Batting was a shame

Sri Lanka made a clean 5-0 whitewash of Zimbabwe in their one day international series. But is it a significant achievement to crow about?

Definitely not. The only good was Zimbabwe's ability to expose the weak links in Sri Lanka batting line up.

Sri Lanka won the first two games easily but were stretched fully by the inexperienced Zimbabwe side in the next three games. It was Zimbabwe's inexperience that deprived them of at least two certain wins. Sri Lanka's poor batting was evident right from the first game where they lost four wickets to reach Zimbabwe's target of 128 in only the 34th over.

Sri Lanka won the second ODI too without much effort though they had close calls in the three remaining games. Zimbabwe were bowled out for 67 runs and Sri Lanka lost the wicket of Mahela Udawatte in reaching the target to win by nine wickets.

In the rain curtained third ODI, Sri Lanka lost seven wickets before making 171 runs in 28 overs. But Zimbabwe too scored freely against the Lankan bowlers but lacked ability to put the finishing touches in style and fell short by just five runs. The home team made 166 for 7 in 28 overs.

Chasing Zimbabwe's total of 146 all out in 46.3 overs, Sri Lanka lost eight wickets before winning the fourth ODI by two wickets with only 15 balls to spare.

Batting first, Sri Lanka were bowled out for 152 off 48.5 overs in the fifth and final ODI. Thanks to that match-winning spell of 5 for 29 off ten overs by Muralitheran Zimbabwe were deprived of even a consolation win.

It was one of the most shameful batting performances by Sri Lanka team in recent times. In the five ODIs, Sri Lanka batsmen painted a poor picture and had an overall batting average of only 22.33 per batsman with an overall run rate of 3.79 against one of the weakest bowling attacks in the world. Leading Sri Lanka's pathetic batting show was none other than captain Mahela Jayawardene who averaged only 4.75 runs in his four innings of 15, 4, 0 and 0.

Jayawardene, who did not bat in the second game, ended the series with a couple of ducks. He promoted himself to open the innings in the final game but ended up with a 12-ball 'duck'. It was medium paceman Tawanda Mupariwa, with only 28 ODI experience, who removed Jayawardene without scoring in the last two games.

Opener Upul Tharanga and middle order batsmen Chamara Kapugedara were the other big failures. Tharanga had scores of 0, 26, 29, 17 and 6 to average 15.6. Kapugedara, though not playing in a Test for almost two years, has represented Sri Lanka in 48 one day internationals. Yet, he failed to justify his continuous presence in the ODI team once again in averaging just 15.00 with unimpressive scores of 16, 28, 12 and 4. If these young players could not impress against a weak side such as Zimbabwe, we wonder what they could offer against the best bowlers in the world in important games.

The only bright spot in the Lankan batting line up was vice captain Kumar Sangakkara. Though it was far below by his standards, Sangakkara had useful knocks of 46, 28 n.o, 57, 23 and 28 to aggregate 182 with an average of 45.50.

The pathetic batting performance against minnows Zimbabwe is definitely an eye opener as the alarm bells ring for the Lankan team. They must make a serious note of their batting debale in Zimbabwe. One could understand if it had been against a well-knit bowling attack in the world on fast wickets like in Australia. But this type of irresponsible batting against a team which does not have any high class bowlers is totally unacceptable.

In a post-series media interview, the Sri Lanka captain has denied that overconfidence stemming from playing weak opponents resulted in his disappointing form during the one-day series against Zimbabwe. "As a top-order batsman there is always pressure and expectation on me to perform but, like any cricketer, one goes through a lean spell, when you don't find your rhythm and as a result can't spend time in the middle," was the 'excuse' Jayawardene has apparently given to the ECB website.

But as professional cricketers with vast experience behind them, pressure on the top order batsmen should be nothing new to Jayawardene. "But the most important thing is you realise where you went wrong and try to rectify that as quickly as possible. I have played enough cricket to realise that," the website quoted Jayawardene as saying.

That is positive thinking and we earnestly hope the Lankan skipper would bounce back and quickly regain his brilliant best to come out with his usual champion stuff. Jayawardene has said that he never has had overconfidence in his life and in 11 years of international cricket he has "never walked into a game with overconfidence".

Despite the kindergarten batting by Sri Lanka batsmen, spinners Muttiah Muralitharan and emerging star Ajantha Mendis were able to turn those certain defeats into sweet victories. Their penetrative bowling once again proved the fact that it is the bowlers who win matches. But we cant expect them to defend low totals all the time.

Luckily, they were able to do that against an inexperienced side which hardly enjoys big time competitive cricket against the top teams in the world. But even Muralitharan and Mendis should be given reasonable totals to defend when we confront world champions such as Australia.

Hence, it is important that we put the house in order before we confront the 'big ones'. Unfortunately, Sri Lanka seems to be having relatively easy opponents in successive series as their next international engagement would be against Bangladesh. That too would be followed by a triangular with Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. Nevertheless, Sri Lanka should make full use of these tours to be in perfect shape by next year.