5 takeaways: What Sri Lanka did right and Pakistan got wrong
Sri Lanka’s tour of Pakistan ended on Wednesday night as the guests completed a 3-0 clean-sweep in their Twenty20 series with a 13-run victory in Lahore.
Here are our five takeaways from the series.
Cricket won
The results were only the icing on the cake. The actual cake was the successful hosting of a guest that had literally been hurt under our care a decade ago.
They came, they stayed, they left and nothing untoward happened. It’s clichéd to say this, but cricket did win.
It was under threat from the horrific past, some scheming neighbours and our own internal incompetency, but the gentleman’s sport still found a way.
The Lankans stayed in Pakistan for 13 days, played five matches and showed the world that this is not the Pakistan of the past, particularly when it comes to the security situation.
Now bring on Australia and England.
Resilient Sri Lanka
Now a thought for the Sri Lankan players' resilience and perseverance. Any side hit by as many as 10 withdrawals would have been content with just making up numbers. This Sri Lanka side did not embarrass itself even once in the five outings on Pakistani soil.
They lost both the ODIs but were far more competitive than their hosts were in the T20Is. Granted that the absence of any expectations must have made their job a bit easier, but what they gain here is far outweighed by what they lost by being deprived of so many of their regulars.
Hats off to this plucky Sri Lankan team that defined the odds and made the world’s best T20I side look like amateurs.