HAVE SRI LANKA HIT THE ROCK BOTTOM?

    A 5-0 whitewash for the second time in the span of 2 months is quite embarrassing, isn't it? Well, Bangladesh would be able to answer such questions because to be brutally honest, Sri Lanka are playing like the Bangladesh of early 2000's.This Sri Lankan team has received some serious hammering in the past few months. They are not just getting beaten in some nail-biters but teams are whistling past them without them even having time to react and recover from the previous match. Zimbabwe won their first ever ODI in Sri Lanka earlier this year and they went on to win 2 more matches to win their first ever ODI series against Sri Lanka by a 3-2 margin. Then came the Indians and the level of Embarrassment went from one level to another as the host were hammered in every single match on the tour. Early part of the U.A.E tour brought some joy for the islanders as they won the test series 2-0 courtsey of some brilliant spin bowling by Rangana Herath to hand Pakistan their first ever series defeat in the U.A.E. But they could not replicate the results in the ODI series resulting in another 5-0 whitewash against their name. The interesting thing being the starts at the top despite of a couple of good batsmen in Niroshan Dickwella and Upul Tharanga. Tharanga does produce a brilliant innings every now and again whereas Dickwella is getting a lots of starts but not being able to make them count. Middle order was too fragile to survive against the Pakistani fast bowling attack which was relatively inexperienced. Absense of Mohommad Amir did not bring any respite as new comers like Rauman Raees, Usman Khan and the number 1 ODI  bowler in the world Hasan Ali ripped apart the Sri Lankan batting in all the five matches. Babar Azam and co. piled on the misery on the inexperienced bowling line up by putting up loads of runs on the board.

    Retirement of the likes of Sangakkara, Jayawardena, Dilshan has left a huge void in the middle order which is clearly too much to fill for the current crop of players. The reality is that this Sri Lankan team has probably hit the rock bottom and when any team hits such low, there is only way out and that is to bounce back and go upwards. There is another tough tour coming up in India which could be nasty as well. It will be interesting to see how Sri Lanka can pick themselves up and end a 12 match losing streak in One Day Internationals.

                                                                             - Gandhar Sathe