{"id":42144,"date":"2015-03-09T18:05:45","date_gmt":"2015-03-10T00:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=42144"},"modified":"2015-03-09T10:21:39","modified_gmt":"2015-03-09T17:21:39","slug":"will-the-sri-lankans-beat-south-africa-in-the-quarter-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/03\/09\/will-the-sri-lankans-beat-south-africa-in-the-quarter-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the Sri Lankans Beat South Africa in the Quarter Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ananda De Costa<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Sir Lanka would have been assured of a quarter finals place if they could beat Australia last Sunday at SCG but that did not happen due to extremely weak bowling. They bowled exactly to Glen Glen maxwell\u2019s bat, if not it was a \u00a0wide ball.<\/p>\n

Provided we beat Scotland on the 11th<\/sup>, we will likely to get the 3rd<\/sup> place of the points table of the group. This means it is very likely that we will have to beat South Africa at the SCG in order to proceed further.<\/p>\n

Despite repeated advice by Sri Lankan cricketing enthusiasts and independent specialists, selectors did not strengthen the bowling arm but were stubborn enough to put a spin to the facts based on the previous two wins and went on with two additional all-rounders excluding specialist fast bowler Suranga Lakmal and the specialist spinner Rangana Herath (who was injured). \u00a0Wicket did not respond well to spinners and Perera, as usual, conceded two expensive overs costing 40 runs.<\/p>\n

Before the last match, our bowling performance can be compared to other teams as follows.<\/p>\n

New Zealand\u00a0\u00a0 conceded\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 only\u00a0 3.25\u00a0 Runs\/over\u00a0 while taking a wicket for every\u00a0 16.2 runs<\/p>\n

India\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 conceded\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 only\u00a0 3.35\u00a0 Runs\/over\u00a0 while taking a wicket for every\u00a0 16.8 runs<\/p>\n

South Africa\u00a0 conceded\u00a0 4.76\u00a0 Runs\/over\u00a0 while taking a wicket for every\u00a0 25.5 runs<\/p>\n

Australia conceded\u00a0\u00a0 4.26\u00a0 Runs\/over\u00a0 while taking a wicket for every\u00a0 18.1 runs<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka conceded\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 5.6\u00a0 Runs\/over\u00a0 while taking a wicket for every\u00a0 37.8 runs<\/p>\n

This means, going by runs per wicket index using simple terms, whilst Australia , India and New Zealand is capable of getting a good team out for 160- 180 runs , Sir Lanka could managed to get them out for 378 runs and that is what exactly has happened.<\/p>\n

Before the quarter finals with South Africa, we have few days to rectify this problem. We will have to reduce one batsman from the team and assuming Hearth will be back by then, we should include two fast bowlers and train them hard.<\/p>\n

How Pakistan managed to stop South African assault \u00a0defending a low target was a joy to watch.\u00a0\u00a0 South Africans\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 appeared to be cruising at\u00a0 1-67 after nine overs, but they were reduced quickly to 6-102 through hostile bowling by Rahat Ali and Wahab Riaz.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 AB de Villiers \u00a0plundered a quick-fire 77, similar to what Glen Maxwell did to Sir Lanka, \u00a0but\u00a0 Pakistan, with its able fast bowlers, managed to dismiss all his partners.<\/p>\n

For Sir Lanka to win, they must work out a strategy to get the Amla out early and learn to dismiss two hard hitters AB de Villiers and Rilee Rossouw.<\/p>\n

At the moment, we have only one bowler, Malinga , who could get them out when they are attacking. For that, two specialist\u00a0 faster bowlers than the usual part timers Perera and Mathews are definitely needed.<\/p>\n

How our fast bowlers performed against South Africa \u00a0during the last meeting in Sri Lanka\u00a0 is worthwhile in examining.<\/p>\n

Herath 1 Match 10 Overs 2 Wickets @ 4.8 runs\/over<\/p>\n

Dilshan 3 Matches 21 Overs 3 Wickets @ 5.38 runs\/ over<\/p>\n

Mendis 3 Matches 23 Overs 7 Wickets @ 5.48 runs\/ over<\/p>\n

Senanayake\u00a0 3 Matches 27 Overs 3 Wickets @ 5.59 runs\/ over<\/p>\n

Mathews 3 Matches 15 Overs 1 Wicket @ 5.6\u00a0 runs\/ over<\/p>\n

Kulasekara 2 Matches 11\u00a0 Overs 0 Wickets @ 5.9\u00a0 runs\/ over<\/p>\n

Malinga\u00a0 3 Matches 23 Overs 1 Wicket @ 7 runs\/ over<\/p>\n

In the last match we played against South Africa, \u00a0AB de Villiiers hammered 108 runs in 71 balls\u00a0 and no bowler including Malinga could even come close to challenging\u00a0 him.<\/p>\n

Therefore, faster bowlers who could bowl yokers at speed will have\u00a0 to be trained and included. Our selectors left out a few at home for no possible reason, taking worse performing slow (fast)bowlers to the world cup instead.<\/p>\n

We should expect three of our top\u00a0 batsmen to fire, it will definitely be easier than playing against Australia , at the same venue SCG where we normally bat very well.<\/p>\n

There is no point adding additional batsman as they cannot do much at death overs, only Perera is able to add quick 30 runs in a very short time.<\/p>\n

In this \u00a0world cup our batsmen have performed exceptionally, yet the selectors destroyed their efforts by not selecting appropriate bowlers.<\/p>\n

To\u00a0 beat South Africa at SCG we must rectify this obvious shortcoming.<\/p>\n

We are good people. Ours is a good team. We should win.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ananda De Costa Sir Lanka would have been assured of a quarter finals place if they could beat Australia last Sunday at SCG but that did not happen due to extremely weak bowling. They bowled exactly to Glen Glen maxwell\u2019s bat, if not it was a \u00a0wide ball. Provided we beat Scotland on the 11th, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}