The Sri Lankan team isn’t the force as it used to be a few years back. The team hasn’t been able to fill the void of the legendary players like Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Tillakaratne Dilshan among others. In 2019 ICC World Cup, the island nation will be banking on the leadership qualities of a newbie, Dimuth Karunarathe. As the young Lankan team arrives in England for the quest of 2019 World Cup, we take a look at how the team performed in the previous World Cup, i.e. ICC Cricket World Cup 2015. ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 All Teams Squad: Full Players List of Nations Participating in CWC 19.

The 1996-ICC Cricket World Cup winner, Sri Lanka, entered the ICC 2015 World Cup as runners’ up from the previous 2011 WC. However, the Lankan Lions couldn’t put a great show in the multi-nation tournament as much they thought to. Here’s how the Sri Lankan team performed in the 2015 ICC World Cup. Know All About 1996 Cricket World Cup: History, Participants and Winner of the Sixth Edition of World Cup.

Group Stage: Sri Lanka was placed in Group A along with New Zealand, Australia, Bangladesh, England, Afghanistan, and Scotland. Sri Lanka won four matches (against Afghanistan, Bangladesh, England, and Scotland) and lost against co-hosts New Zealand and Australia. With eight points from four wins, the Lankan Lions qualified for the knock out stage.

Knock out stage | Quarter-finals: The Lankan Lions ended the Group stage on the third place (A3). Sri Lanka squared-off against South Africa in the second quarterfinal match of the WC 2015.

In the first innings, the team folded on a paltry 133 runs, with only Kumar Sangakkara and Lahiru Thirimanne scoring decently, i.e. 45 runs and 41 runs respectively. Other than the duo, it was only Angelo Mathews who crossed the double figures. Imran Tahir was the pick of the bowlers as he took 4/26 in his 8.2 overs.

In their reply, Quinton de Kock scored a quick-fire half-century to make the chase a cakewalk for South Africa. The Proteas chased down the target very comfortably, winning the match by 9 wickets. Tahir was adjudged as the ‘Player of the Match’ award for his impressive bowling figures.

ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 Warm-Up Schedule TimeTable: CWC19 Full Fixtures With Match Timings in IST

Most Runs for Sri Lanka in CWC 2015: Kumar Sangakkara had a dream tournament where he ended up scoring 541 runs in only 7 matches (highest-scorer Martin Guptill scored 547 runs in 9 matches). T Dilshan scored the second-most with 395 runs, and Lahiru Thirimanne was next with 302 runs in his kitty.

Most Wickets for Sri Lanka in CWC 2015: Lasith Malinga was the sole Lankan bowler to cross the double-figures. Malinga picked 12 wickets in 7 matches at an impressive economy rate of 5.56. The next on the list were Suranga Lakmal and Angelo Mathews with 7 and 6 wickets respectively.

It will be interesting to see how far the team travels in ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. The players aren’t in great form, and to worsen their cause, injury is one of the biggest issues in the camp. However, the team has always qualified in the knockout stages always. It will be exciting to see if they make it to the semi-finals this time, which seems highly unlikely.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 23, 2019 08:30 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).