Young guns gelling a championship positive as Sri Lanka brace for Pakistan today

Sri Lanka carries a strong confidence optimism of getting past Pakistan in a Champions Trophy countdown at the Oval today. That is in a decimating estimation by the experts that both sides border on the erratic; that Sri Lanka, who should have beaten South Africa, registered a knee jerk win against the high riding reigning champions India.

They have also analyzed the win loss ratio that has cast Sri Lanka at No. 7 in ICC rankings, and Pakistan at 8, and that it will be two of the weakest sides in the championship in a crucial battle to get in to the se mi finals. Contentions that Sri Lanka lacks a game plan, and that there are no super stars with Lasith Malinga looking ordinary, and that it is a relative young team has given Sri Lanka little hope of going the distance. Skipper Angelo Mathews’ eve of match statement that  ‘we’ve got a young set of players who are still coming through the ranks and who are still unfamiliar with the international level, but the skill is obviously there. We know what we can do. We showed the other day’ has been viewed as the strongest element in putting Sri Lanka on a thin estimation.

To boot has been the conspicuous injury factor that has put several players on the sidelines; first Mathews, then Kusal Janith Perera and Thisara Perera, who though is said to have recovered from a shot on the head at practice, and fit to play today.

Overly, for all the downsizings, Sri Lanka does carry that mystique factor that has doubled up the analysts that Mathews’ charges do possess the onions or ammunition or skill to rise to the  occasion. The entry of replacement atsman Dhananjaya De Silva for Kusal Janith Perera is  interesting fodder to digest. He was a mite unlucky not to make the squad, and his arrival by injury coincidence to a player must certainly be seen as quite a reinforcing factor to the batting department with all due respect to Perera who was in good nick. De Silva does pack temperament and technique that would be a a buoying factor to the batting department.

The big plus factor Sri Lanka would be on a glee is that star youngsters like Kusal Mendis, Dhanushka Gunathilaka and Niroshan Dickwella have gelled; the type of gelling that certainly puts the island nation on a strong horizon of going it to the wire this 2017 extravaganza.

By Srian Obeyesekere