Bruised and battered Sri Lanka hunt for a turning point
In the afterglow of the win over South Africa in Delhi, Netherlands captain Scott Edwards proudly spoke of 'total cricket' - a tactical setup borrowed from football that made waves in the 1970s in the Netherlands. In simple terms, it is a concept where any player could take up the role of any other player (barring the goalkeeper) in a fluid system full of versatility and synchronization. Edwards drew parallels in cricket after his No.8 and No.9 batters - Roelof van der Merwe and Aryan Dutt - stepped up to do the batting job that the top-order didn't, and changed the course of the game in the process.
'Total cricket' is perhaps the need of the hour for Sri Lanka too. Their World Cup reel so far has a handful of individual moments of brilliance but zero points to show for them. The inconsistency has been rampant - their depleted bowling unit let them down in Delhi and Hyderabad but more alarmingly, their batting combusted from a position of strength in Lucknow.
A little over a month ago, Sri Lanka had a 13-game winning streak in ODIs, second only to Australia's 21 from 2003. But the tide has turned violently since then, leaving them with one win in six. Compounding their woes is the form and psyche of Netherlands - the perceived 'outsider' and 'non-elite'. Sri Lanka have repeatedly been left to lick their wounds in this tournament so far while Edwards's side is fresh from having brought the big-tournament cliche of 'every team can beat every other team on their day' to life.
Saturday's day game was expected to be one of the non-glamorous fixtures of the tournament, until narratives changed and expectations ramped up - Sri Lanka need a turning point and Netherlands, a rare passage towards the top-half of the table.
When: Netherlands vs Sri Lanka, October 21, 10.30 AM Local time
Where: Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow
What to expect:A sunny and pleasant morning with temperature oscillating between late 20s and early-30s in degree celsius. In the two games at this venue in the World Cup so far, pacers have picked more wickets than spinners - 17 to 13. In the six ODIs here, teams batting first and chasing have won three each. But these numbers might not mean much ahead of Saturday's fixture, which is the first day game at the venue - taking dew and the impact of toss out of the picture. On Friday, Netherlands' Teja Nidamanuru said: "From speaking to the ground staff, they say there is going to be a little bit more pace and carry [on the wicket]."
Team News
Netherlands
It's only been three days since they pulled off an incredible win in Delhi. Barring any niggles/injuries from that victory, they should unleash the same XI against Sri Lanka.
Tactics & Strategy
Netherlands might want to avoid the stress of chasing to give themselves the best chance to upstage another opposition. Like Afghanistan, their fellow giant-killers, Netherlands are better off putting a score up and coming together to defend it.
There's recent evidence against this particular opposition to support the idea - they fell short in two chases against Sri Lanka in the World Cup qualifiers.
Probable XI: Vikramjit Singh, Max O'Dowd, Colin Ackermann, Bas de Leede, Sybrand Engelbrecht, Teja Nidamanuru, Scott Edwards (c & wk), Logan van Beek, Roelof van der Merwe, Aryan Dutt, Paul van Meekeren
Sri Lanka
Angelo Mathews and Dushmantha Chameera are flying in on the eve of the game as travelling reserves, but cannot walk into the playing XI unless Sri Lanka officially replace one of their existing 15 players in the squad with them. Sri Lanka could bring in Kasun Rajitha to freshen up a struggling bowling department.
Tactics & Strategy
Sri Lanka's best bet is their batting, and particularly through the middle-overs. They have the likes of Kusal Mendis, Sadeera Samarawickrama and Charith Asalanka who average 57.4, 48.0 and 49.1 in that phase (11-40 overs) this year.
Probable XI: Pathum Nissanka, Kusal Perera, Kusal Mendis, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Charith Asalanka, Dhananjaya de Silva, Dunith Wellalage, Chamika Karunaratne, Maheesh Theekshana, Lahiru Kumara/Kasun Rajitha, Dilshan Madushanka
Did you know:
- Scott Edwards averages 62.58 against spin in ODIs
- Maheesh Theekshana has seven wickets in two World Cup matches against Netherlands, and has a measly economy rate of 4.59 in the middle-overs (11-40) in ODIs this year
- In 2023, Vikramjit Singh and Max O'Dowd have scored 781 runs in 16 innings together as openers, at an average of 48.81.
- Since January 2022, Sri Lanka opener Pathum Nissanka has scored 1310 runs at an average of 46.78. No other Sri Lankan batter has 1000 or more runs in the same period in this format.
What they said:
"I think If we assess those two games that we played against Sri Lanka [in World Cup qualifiers], it's our batting department that probably didn't live up to the expectation that we needed to. I think in the final we played, we kept them down to a good score, we could have chased that, but obviously their spin through the middle was something that troubled us... but that's something that we've looked into and we've addressed and we've worked extremely hard on playing spin and being able to rotate strike through the middle a little bit better" -Teja Nidamanuru
