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Sri Lanka batter Charith Asalanka pitched for batting-friendly tracks as it will help batters as well as bowlers prepare for international tournaments.
Sri Lanka's second ODI against Afghanistan saw a rare occasion when the team batting first scored more than 300 runs in two consecutive games. Before the beginning of the series, there have been only ten instances where 300-plus scores were scored in the ODI across 358 ODIs that have been played in Sri Lanka. The recent trend has seen a shift in the ODI where teams target a score of more than 300. Last year's World Cup, saw a total of 13 350-plus scores. Overall, there were only 24 such totals in all World Cup combined. "After we came back from the World Cup, the first thing we spoke about was the pitches," Asalanka said as quoted from ESPNcricinfo. "We were generally used to pitches where scoring more than 300 was a challenge. But if we take the pitches we've played on [in] this series so far, those concerns seem to have been addressed to a large extent," Asalanka added. In the first ODI, Sri Lanka scored 381/3 in the first ODI and 308/6 in the second ODI. On both occasions, when the surface favoured Afghanistan batters, Sri Lanka bowlers upped their ante and scalped wickets on crucial occassions to clinch the series. "Even today, they [Afghanistan] were in a good place in terms of their batting but as they were trying to accelerate I think we bowled well to get them out. But this is how pitches need to be, because when we go to play international tournament[s] we're generally going to get wickets where you need to score more than 300," Asalanka said. "So to be able to do that we need to have practised in our home conditions. If we do more of that then it's going to be easier for us to compete in ICC tournaments. More than that I think even our bowlers are starting to learn how to bowl on good batting wickets," Asalanka added. Sri Lanka will face Afghanistan in the final ODI of the three-match series on Wednesday. (ANI)
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