By Srian Obeyesekere
The second T20, decisive to Sri Lanka to drawing even against a 1-up Pakistan, abandoned by persistent heavy rain yesterday at Dambulla, was a setback to the host nation’s prospects of staying in the 3-match series as the wait has extended to a tightrope final do or die face off tomorrow at the same venue.
Indeed, the decisive game by large is of the greatest importance for reinstalled skipper Dasun Shanaka to delivering Sri Lanka out of a bad winless rut that goes back to last year’s tail end 3-0 loss to Pakistan over there where a 4-match loss factor in his second stint as captain is pressurising to come good to justifying the big faith in him by Chief Selector Pramodya Wickremasinghe who spoke highly of him as the man for the job to lead Sri Lanka to the upcoming 2026 T20 World Cup. On that note, Shanaka faces a huge atoning wake up call to get his lead from the front act right if he is to justify the selector faith that saw his predecessor Charith Asalanka was rather unceremoniously chucked out despite a pleasing start when he led Sri Lanka from the front from dire straits in hammering a century followed by a 70 odd against world cricket’s powerhouse Australia in winning the home ODI series before form rut losses set in which though as the game’s performance yardstick slogan defines, ‘form is temporary, class is permanent.’
Thus, the demand for Dasun Shanaka to come good becomes paramount where essentially he has to exploit the power of the sword thrust in his hand to lead by example. But the captain coming as late as No 8 in the lost lung opener was far from that where the final result did show the negativity in the batting order where he had little or no width given the few overs remaining when he took strike and as the leader of the pack should have got into the action up in the order to producing the firepower batting skills he is known of to ensuring the side got the desired runs to challenging the opposition.