BY ANDREW FIDEL FERNANDO
COLOMBO– Where not so long ago, bilateral ODI series in T20 World Cup years lacked context, the ODI Super League has helped bring some importance to these fixtures.
Neither Sri Lanka nor Zimbabwe are particularly well-placed on the table.
Sri Lanka have 42 points, which puts them at seventh and could easily be pushed out of the top eight, where they will need to be to automatically qualify for the next ODI World Cup.
Their position is especially precarious because they have played 15 of their possible 24 matches; every team below them on the table has played fewer.
Zimbabwe, meanwhile, have played only nine of their matches, but are dead last on the table, with 25 points (equal with the Netherlands, but worse on net run rate).
When the last time these teams met in a bilateral series on the island in 2017, however, Zimbabwe emerged victors in a closely-fought five-match series.
Then, the runs of Hamilton Masakadza and Solomon Mire had been vital to Zimbabwe’s triumph.
Both batters are now retired, however.
Allrounder Sikandar Raza, who had also been instrumental in that series, has made the trip, however.
As their Super League standing suggests, ODIs are perhaps Sri Lanka’s weakest format.
They go into this series without a permanent head coach, with Rumesh Ratnayake filling in as interim coach.
Also missing are Kusal Perera and Wanindu Hasaranga, who are injured, Avishka Fernando, who tested positive for Covid, Dhananjaya de Silva, who is on paternity leave, and Lahiru Kumara, who failed a skin-folds Test.
Zimbabwe coach Lalchand Rajput, who had been in Sri Lanka since the Lanka Premier League, is also likely to be absent from his team’s dressing room for the first two matches, as he has tested positive for Covid as well. –EspnCrickinfo