Top heavy with a thin middle

Sri Lanka's best batsmen bat at Nos 1, 2 and 3 in the one-day side and if they do depart early, the domino theory is put into effect, writes SR Pathiravithana in the Colombo-based Sunday Times.

... one must not forget opener Mahela Udawatte, who the ‘A’ coach Chandika Haturusinghe has identified as a batsman who has good ‘eye-ball co-ordination’. In his last two ODI innings, Udawatte has two impressive scores of 73 and 67.

The other day while having a chat with a selection insider he pointed out, that right now, Sri Lanka national team is batting on a very uncertain wicket. Don’t we feel the weight? Don’t we feel that we are too top heavy with a very thin middle? He was pondering about the wisdom of opening batting with Kumar Sangakkara. Since, he began to open batting in the West Indies he has scores of 23,28 and 1 (in the West Indies) 101,0,112 and 121 of which two were against Bangladesh and one against Pakistan during the Asia Cup. But, since then his contributions at the top has been 7,4,19 and 2 – all against India. His grouse was that at present Sri Lanka is wasting the incomparable talent of Sangakkara by opening the innings with him.