Thirimanne revels in familiar territory

Sometimes you strike out into the unknown seeking a fresh challenge only to wind up just where you began, wiser for the journey. In the years since Lahiru Thirimanne debuted as an ODI opener in 2010, he has batted everywhere in the order from No. 1 to No. 8. For much of 2013, he was Sri Lanka's No. 5 - the link-man between Mahela Jayawardene's flair and Angelo Mathew's finishing blows. Only a month ago, he was set to bat through the World Cup at No. 6, where he had lately begun to string together some effective innings.

In between, Thirimanne has temporarily filled in at the top of the order, and that is where he has landed again. Sri Lanka's opening woes have been so dire in the past few months, that Tillakaratne Dilshan had had five ODI opening partners since mid-October. Now, returned to the more comfortable surrounds, Thirimanne has begun provide some stability to the opening partnership, with scores of 45, 29, 30 and 65 since he began to face the new ball in his latest stint.

"If you look at my batting style, I feel like I can be more useful at the top of the order," Thirimanne said. "At times I've gone down and batted at six - sometimes quite well - but to do that I had to change my technique. At the top of the order, I go back to my basics. I've made better use of my chances there."

He has a point. After 69 ODI innings, Thirimanne's average is 32.26, but has scored his runs at 39.61 on the 23 occasions he has batted in the top three. Each of this three centuries have also come from those positions - two of them, memorably, as an opener in last year's Asia Cup, where he was the player of the tournament. He has better returns in slower conditions, but has also had some success in the antipodes. His other ODI hundred came in Adelaide, against Australia, two weeks after he struck a 91 in the Sydney Test not long after he was parachuted into the tour.

Playing in the middle order has helped expand his batting, which had been a reliable but uninspiring monochrome when he began. In Sri Lanka's World Cup opener, he struck 65 off 60 to top the scoring, as Sri Lanka failed to chase New Zealand's 331. Among his eight fours were two advancing cover drives, and a ramp over the slips.

"The experience of batting low down did a lot of good things for me as well," he said. "When you get only 10 overs to bat down there, you've got to play a lot of shots. So you've got to start playing ramp shots, paddle sweeps, lofted shots and the like. That builds variety into your game.

"Now when I open, I have options, which can change depending on the situation. If you look at the matches so far, for example, West Indies were struggling at the start and hit over 125 runs in the last 15 overs. Sometimes you get a good start - like when you're 60 after 10 overs, and then you should be looking at 300-350. But when that doesn't happen, the openers' wickets become crucial. You've got to keep the scorecard ticking, but then wickets translate into a lot of runs later."

Of the young batsmen in the Sri Lanka side, Thirimanne has been the most consistent and displayed the steadiest temperament over the past two years. In that time he has been marked out as a key batsman in Sri Lanka's future by Jayawardene and especially Kumar Sangakkara.

"I haven't actually made big changes to my technique to adjust to different conditions," Thirimanne said. "There have been small things to change from place to place, of course, but I've also had Kumar aiya say, 'The way you bat, you shouldn't have to change too much. Keep making small adjustments given the situation, but you have the basics.' One of those small changes: recently Mahela aiya was also telling me that I have to move my feet in a slightly different way when playing spin - to bat more on off stump. So those little changes have helped, but they've only been small changes. With what those two tell us, often their technical advice is really helpful. Kumar aiya is clearly far ahead of me, but his technique is also of a similar ilk to mine, so I value what they tell me."

Thirimanne was made vice-captain in 2014, and has since led his team three times in ODIs. Sri Lanka won only one of those matches, right at the tail-end of the recent series against New Zealand, but Thirimanne believed the team had the quality to turn their fortunes around. Much of the World Cup squad had also played in Sri Lanka's 2014 hot-streak, when they won the Asia Cup, World T20, and Test and one-day series in England and Bangladesh, all between February and July.

"The last two months haven't been easy, but we need to start showing our character now. In the last year, this is the same team we had. There were a few months in 2014 when we were winning 95% of our matches. We encountered some tough conditions in New Zealand, and that has set us back, but I think we can overcome that and rally."