Why are Sri Lanka and Bangladesh so poor at T20I batting?

For longer than ten years, a little over half of international T20 cricket's lifespan so far, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have nursed woeful run rates. The stats are pretty clear. Of the ten top-ranked men's T20I teams, they have the two worst run rates since 2015.

A ten-plus year span is clearly many ages in T20 cricket, the fastest moving and now most-played of cricket's formats. And yet Bangladesh and Sri Lanka's loyalty to the bottom of this table has seen extraordinary consistency. Between 2015 and the end of 2019 they were eighth (Bangladesh) and tenth (Sri Lanka) on the table, and since 2020 they are eighth (Sri Lanka) and tenth (Bangladesh). If you're looking for more recent history - since the start of 2024 - they are eighth (Sri Lanka) and ninth (Bangladesh), just ahead of Afghanistan. But unlike Afghanistan, neither Sri Lanka or Bangladesh qualified for the semi-final of the last World Cup.

We're mostly interested in only the run rate for this section, but just to illustrate how abysmal these teams' batting has been, we've also incorporated batting average into this graph.

In the long term, there has not been one particular phase of the game in which they have struggled - they have been poor in the powerplay, middle overs and death. But since 2024, some differences have emerged. Sri Lanka have become a middling team (sixth out of ten) in the powerplay, while Bangladesh are middling (fifth out of ten) at the death. That progress has perhaps been powered by their improved six-hitting, as Mohammad Isam lays out here. But they both continue to both be poor through the middle overs and poor overall.

What could possibly be behind such long-term dysfunction for these two nations specifically? A theory has arisen, independently in each country, that might explain these run rates. Tracks in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh - at the Premadasa and Mirpur stadiums especially - are too spin-friendly to allow batters to develop more aggressive aspects of their game, or so the thinking goes.

In August 2023, for example, Sanath Jayasuriya tweeted his displeasure at low-scoring surfaces at the Premadasa in the Lanka Premier League, arguing that pitches should "fuel positive, aggressive play" to "electrify the fans". He was in charge of the Dambulla Aura team then, but is now head coach of Sri Lanka's men. Around the same time, Sri Lanka captain's captain then, Wanindu Hasaranga, also made his displeasure for slower Premadasa tracks known.

Bangladesh's players, meanwhile, have asked to play as few T20Is in Mirpur as possible, preferring the better batting track in Sylhet. Just a couple of months ago, Mike Hesson, Pakistan's coach, slammed the Mirpur surface calling it "not up to international standards" when his team were dismissed for 110.

At first blush, the numbers line up in support of this theory. Since the start of 2020, matches played in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are ninth and tenth respectively for run rate (innings involving top ten teams only). T20Is in these countries have also seen the two lowest batting averages over the last few years.

So we have long-term correlation. But do we have causation? It's difficult to pin down exactly whether the pitches are the source of the problem, given a whole host of other factors (domestic structure, resources, coaching, strategy, etc) could be affecting these outcomes. But a further set of stats suggests that the pitches being part of the problem is a strain of thought worth pursuing.

When Bangladesh and Sri Lanka play overseas, you would expect their scoring rates to be substantially better than at home on account of the pitches overseas being better on average, right? But since 2020 both Sri Lanka's and Bangladesh's scoring rates have only increased marginally when playing top ten opposition away from home. Sri Lanka have an improvement of 0.28 runs per over, while Bangladesh show an improvement of 0.70. Other teams, meanwhile, average 1.53 runs per over more when they play outside of Bangladesh or Sri Lanka than in those nations.