Sri Lanka is a victim of consequences that changed in ODI cricket

When it comes to the downfall of SL ODI cricket there are a few things people forget...

- Some fast bowlers may do unbelievable things when the swing is on offer. But just bowl boundary balls when not. So the conditions really matter for most fast bowlers.

- SL's glory days had a hidden strength that was more important than all. They had a bunch of slow bowlers - spinners predominantly - in the middle overs. Most of them are batters who can spin. These folks controlled the game in the middle overs so that the opposition rarely had a walk in the park.

- With the coming of two cricket balls in two ends, and the field restrictions leading to the intro of second power play, cricket killed all those middle-overs spinner all-rounders. And THAT has been a silent killer for SL than anything else. Not that SL did so good in the past 10 years, but on top of SL's mistakes, they lost one of their main strengths.

- Today, the pitches are made for 300+, and hence ODI is really a batter's game, and relatively boring. However, SL does not agree with this trend. This is the very reason why games in SL are 250 games and still, you need a lot of good health to survive as a spectator. This is the best of ODI and how it should be. But the world has different opinions. This disparity would add more to SL's agony as they are playing in different wickets at home and their slow bowlers are not accustomed to 300+ wickets.

- Regardless of what the world did after the Sanath-Kalu style, SL always batted their best batters in no 3, 4, and 5. They made sure that the team made stable progress in the middle overs. What SL lost in the recent past is the lack of similar quality in the middle order. After the days of Mahela, Sanga, and in form Angie (not the Angie after 2015) we do not have that level of quality there, the slots were mostly given to beginners who never got established so far.

- The ODI game had a high impact from T20 the power hitting in the first and last powerplay makes more impact than the consolidation. Although we invented this style and had a few names at the world's best level, SL always lacked power hitters. In modern games, it is a major lack compared to when stylish Sanga and Mahela could still win the game 10 years ago.

- In the pitches that favor batting there is so little early swing, so what made Vass and Kulasekara nightmares to others is no longer there. And the ball can at most become 25 overs old as there are two of them. So Malinga's latter over reverse swing is also hardly possible. These are the main fast bowling skills SL possessed in the past.

- These facts changed the game so much that many of SL's strengths became obsolete. Although the messes in SL cricket cannot be justified, it is equally possible that those messes came up since SL did not have the qualities that the game evolved in the last 10 years, hence desperately trying to find make-shift solutions.