Asalanka on SL’s form: ‘Goal is to climb to top three in the rankings’

Coming off three limited overs series wins in a row, men’s captain Charith Asalanka has serious aspirations for this team: let’s be as good as Sri Lanka had been before 2014.

That 2007-2014 side had arguably been Sri Lanka’s greatest ever outfit, getting to no fewer than five World Cup finals (three in T20Is and two in ODIs), before finally winning the 2014 T20 title.

Limited overs performances in particular had fallen off a cliff for Sri Lanka after 2015. But on the heels of an ODI series win against India, and a T20I and ODI series victory against West Indies, Asalanka is hoping to recapture some old magic.

The first task is to climb into the top three in the ICC rankings, Asalanka said ahead of the series against New Zealand. In T20Is, which the teams play first, Sri Lanka are at No. 8. In ODIs, they are curiously a little better, despite not having earned qualification to next year’s Champions Trophy, and sit at No. 6. They need to make progress on both fronts, said Asalanka, who has been captain of both formats since August this year.

“We need to climb up the rankings, because that shows we’ve been consistently winning,” he said. “Our goal is is to climb to the top three in the rankings. If we’ve consistently been winning, when we go to the ICC tournaments, we won’t get exposed.

“We’d have played good teams and won, like we used to do in 2014 and before, when we used to get to the semi-finals easily. We are hoping to come back to that level. It’s important to play really well from tour to tour.”

While Sri Lanka are in this phase of rediscovering consistency, there is no room to field any worse than a top XI, he said. So far, Sri Lanka’s white-ball resurgence has come only at home, on largely big-turning pitches. But they have through the course of the last few months also fielded new players, who have performed almost immediately – Janith Liyanage, and Nishan Madushka especially.

“We only reently started winning a few matches in a row,” Asalanka said. “It’s the same team that played. Until the base of our cricket improves a little more, we’re trying to play the best XI. But we do have a big plus point, which is that the players on the bench also have had a chance, and they’ve performed well before they’ve gone back to the bench.

“We’re hoping to play our best XI all the time. That’s how our bench strength improves as well, because they then know how well you have to play to get a spot in that XI. And the players in the XI also fight for their own places. I think we’ve improved that situation recently. Hopefully we can develope 15/16 really strong players over the course of a year.”