World Cup 2019: Approaching milestones for the Sri Lankan players

No team has been as consistent as Sri Lanka in the ICC events until the 2015 World Cup but the things have changed quite quickly. They narrowly secured a direct qualification to the World Cup 2019 hanging around in the ICC rankings. The last couple of years have been extremely tough for the Lankans while they kept rotating captains. Dimuth Karunaratne, who last played an ODI in the CWC 2015, was brought back to the squad and named as the captain.

Here are the approaching player milestones for the Sri Lankan players ahead of the tournament:

97 – Kusal Perera needs to hit three more sixes to become the 8th player to hit 100 sixes in International cricket for Sri Lanka. With those three sixes, Perera will also become the 10th player to smash 50 and more sixes in ODIs for the Lankans. Kusal has hit 47 sixes in his 88-match ODI career.

520 – Number of wickets Lasith Malinga has bagged in his International career for Sri Lanka. He needs six more wickets to surpass Rangana Herath (525) for moving on to the 3rd spot in the list of leading wicket-takers for Sri Lanka in Internationals. In the recent ODI series in South Africa, Malinga moved on to the 3rd position in the list of highest wicket-takers in ODI cricket while playing for Sri Lanka.

1692 – Kusal Mendis needs 308 more runs for reaching 2000 runs in ODI cricket. He will be the 4th quickest Sri Lankan to reach the milestone if he completes it in this tournament. Mendis will be joint 2nd fastest Sri Lankan if he scores those 308 runs in next five innings and joint 3rd fastest from Sri Lanka if he needs six innings. Mendis is also 315 runs away from completing 4000 International runs.

2990 – Lahiru Thirimanne needs ten more runs to complete 3000 runs in the ODI format. Thirimanne will be the 16th player from Sri Lanka to reach this milestone but the 3rd quickest among those if he scores those ten runs in next three innings. Thirimanne has batted 98 ODI innings and would be behind Upul Tharanga (93 inns) and Marvan Atapattu (94 inns) in this list when he gets to the 3000-run mark.

11990 – Runs Angelo Mathews has amassed in the International cricket for Sri Lanka. Angelo needs ten more runs to become the 8th player to score 12000 and more runs across all formats for Sri Lanka in Internationals.