Sri Lanka lost the two-match Test series against South Africa 2-0. This defeat destroyed all hopes of participating in the 2025 Test Championship final.
With this series loss, a very unfortunate point must be made – Sri Lankan Test batters have given a new meaning to throwing away matches.
However, this wasn’t match-fixing for money. Rather, it was throwing away matches by abandoning the true meaning of Test cricket. The most painful aspect is that this came from Sri Lanka’s most experienced Test batters.
In the Test series against South Africa, this foolish throwing away of matches happened due to careless batting. The way Sri Lanka’s strongest batters played in a series that needed to be won was laughable.
all out for 42 runs
While the first Test defeat might be acceptable because the team was all out for 42 runs in the first innings, there can be no excuse for how these batters played in the second Test. The senior batters—Matthews, Dimuth, Dhananjaya, and Kusal Mendis—didn’t play like mature batters at all. Their extremely poor shot selection led to Sri Lanka’s defeat in the second Test.
These batters’ carelessness cannot be dismissed. Matthews is the most mature player on the team, the oldest player, and the one closest to retirement. He got out attempting a shot that was unexpected from such a player.
Dimuth Karunaratne was unsuccessful throughout this series. He hesitated when facing Rabada’s pace bowling, which shouldn’t happen with a mature player. As the team’s opening batter, he failed to fulfil his responsibility properly.
Skipper Dhananjaya de Silva’s performance was similar to Matthews. If there was a genuine intention to win this match, Dhananjaya should have played with a captain’s responsibility. However, his batting style showed no leadership qualities whatsoever.
The same can be said about Kusal Mendis. Kusal never plays responsibly. Even spectators have no confidence in his stability. He still doesn’t understand that Test cricket is a very slow-paced game and why a Test match is played over five days.
More than 40 years test history
However, none of Sri Lanka’s Test batters have learnt the purpose and context of Test cricket. It’s shameful that players from Sri Lanka, with over 40 years of Test cricket history, don’t recognise this.
If they had emulated players from strong Test-playing nations, this situation wouldn’t have occurred. Look at how attractively the South African batters played. They didn’t play with the intention of forcefully scoring runs. They didn’t go for unnecessary shots. They didn’t hunt for runs. They very clearly followed the Test cricket pattern. They were focused only on victory.
However, Sri Lankan batters didn’t have this objective. They wanted to score runs from the first moment they faced the ball. They did not need to stabilise at the wicket. If they had known about this stability, they wouldn’t have lost the second Test to South Africa. They could have easily achieved the target of 348 runs. But what happened in the end? South Africa defeated Sri Lanka very easily. In truth, South Africa didn’t defeat Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka defeated themselves. The team’s batsmen are entirely responsible for this defeat.
Only Lahiru is a capable bowler
Another reason for this series defeat was Sri Lanka’s pace bowlers. Lahiru Kumara, Vishwa Fernando, and Asitha Fernando participated in both matches as fast bowlers. However, only Lahiru Kumara understood how to bowl on a fast wicket. The other two showed no ability to bowl in such conditions. They didn’t bowl threateningly to the batsmen.
Fast bowlers must be able to get bounce on such fast wickets. If they can’t bowl around the batsman’s waist area, there’s no threat to the batsmen. You can’t win matches on such fast wickets by just bowling wicket to wicket. However, Sri Lankan bowlers lack this ability. Therefore, neither Asitha nor Vishwa could help Lahiru Kumara.
However, two bowlers in the squad could get the ball to bounce – Kasun Rajitha and Milan Rathnayake. Though they’re both slow-medium pacers, they can get a bounce from the pitch. Milan Rathnayake is also skilled as a batter. But Sanath Jayasuriya decided to place his trust in Asitha and Vishwa instead of these two bowlers. However, Sanath couldn’t increase the pace of these two bowlers’ bowling patterns.
Sri Lanka has won only a few matches on such fast wickets. The reason is these same weaknesses that existed then persist today. However, Sri Lanka’s cricket experts have failed to recognise this situation. It’s a very unfortunate state. That’s why they had to face defeat in such a valuable series. And that’s why they had to exit the Test Championship. The same thing happened last time. Even then, Sri Lanka hoped to participate in the final match, but those hopes were lost with the defeat in the New Zealand series. Then, too, they were defeated on New Zealand’s fast wickets. The same happened this time in South Africa.
Somehow use Pathirana
Matheesha Pathirana is currently Sri Lanka’s fastest bowler. He has a sling action. He currently only plays T20 matches, not ODI matches. Sri Lankan cricket selectors indeed do this to protect him. Therefore, they don’t use him in demanding Test matches.
However, it would be advantageous to include Pathirana as the third bowler on the team during such an important test championship journey. It’s possible to use him in Test matches while protecting him. He should be used at least for matches played on fast wickets. There could have been some difference if he had played in this South African series. If Pathirana had bowled alongside Lahiru Kumara, they could have pressured the South Africans significantly. However, this didn’t happen.
According to the current situation, winning matches on fast wickets is very difficult. There’s no use getting excited over winning one or two matches by chance. Winning matches overseas is essential to winning the World Test Championship. However, Sri Lanka doesn’t have good fast bowlers to do this. Therefore, the Test Championship remains just a dream for Sri Lanka.
