It was last Sunday that county’s national cricket team faltered after a near perfect run in the ICC T-20 World Cup in England where Pakistan emerged victorious after beating Sri Lanka in the final at Lord’s.

Naturally, the expectations among the cricket enthusiasts and, more importantly, within the team was such that everyone was expecting a Sri Lankan win given the fact that the team had a clean sheet up until the final game, where they were beaten by a resurgent Pakistan side.

Where did Sri Lanka fault? Some blame Jehan Mubarak. What was he told when he was sent in at No.3? Others find fault with Mahela Jayawardene. What has happened to all his experience? While some others still can’t comprehend the need for Sanath Jayasuriya to go for that full blooded cut shot when he had already scored a six and a boundary off Abdul Razzaq in that over.

Overall, Kumar Sangakkara, summed up things perfectly. For him the turning points in the game were losing too many wickets in the first few overs and the inability of his own bowlers to provide early breakthroughs. As usual, Kumar was spot on. But the Sri Lankan think tank will have to dig deep into a few things in the aftermath of the tournament.

The first of those major topics of discussions would be to find out whether Chamara Silva is a T-20 player or whether he’s more suited to ODI cricket. Silva, having played all the seven games, managed a top score of 14 runs and accumulated a grand total of 68 in seven games and averaged less than ten runs a game.

It had been said that he didn’t spend much time in the middle having come to bat at No.5 on most instances. But in the final, he had ample time, but appeared completely out of depth and cut a poor figure of himself by the end of his knock having played and missed several times.

But the case of Jehan Mubarak will be a hotter topic in cricket circles. You’ve got to admit that no Sri Lankan cricketer in recent times has got the opportunities that Mubarak has. Yet, barring his effort against the Australians where he made an unbeaten 21, together with Chamara Silva, he happened to be a mere passenger in the side with the top four – Dilshan, Jayasuriya, Sangakkara and Jayawardene doing all the scoring. Apart from the first game, Mubarak failed to reach double figures in any of his knocks.

Starting from the ICC World Cup in South Africa in 2003, Mubarak has got all the opportunities, playing in most of the big tournaments, but he has failed to show any consistency or even promise and in 38 ODIs has scored just four half-centuries, including one each against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh while his Test career that began in 2002 has failed to produce a single half-century in ten games, an long space for any player to come good.

During Ashantha de Mel’s tenure as Chairman of Selectors, he has persevered with Mubarak as if he’s the next Marvan Atapattu of Sri Lankan cricket. At times, during tours, when Sri Lanka required an opener as replacement for an injured player, Mubarak has been flown in and when the team required a middle-order batsman due to injury the same player has been flown in. The only thing de Mel has not done is to fly in Mubarak as replacement for an injured off-spinner!

It is time for Sri Lanka to take stocks after another disappointing effort by the 28-year-old for as one senior cricket writer put it very correctly – the more he plays, the more he fails and the more he fails, the more he plays.

On the positive sides, the emergence of Angelo Mathews was a much needed boost for Sri Lankan cricket. All who saw him in England were highly impressed with the quality of cricket he put on show. Most of the things that he dished out during the tournament was spoken about at length. His acrobatics in saving a six became the talking point among both critics and cricket enthusiasts and it culminated with the MCC, the guardians of the laws of game, issuing a statement commending the player’s effort.

He was entrusted with the new ball and didn’t disappoint and his first over against the West Indies at the Oval at the semi-final was an extraordinary one as three West Indian batsmen were bowled, all off deflections, and it was that over that put the Sri Lankans on top.

The coaching staff of SLC had categorised Mathews as a better batsman than a bowler and more than his bowling it was with the bat that he impressed providing the team with the much needed impetus late in the innings. If not for his efforts in the final over in the grand final at Lord’s, Sri Lanka would have certainly struggled to get close to 125.

In fact, he topped averages for the Lankans hitting 75 runs in six innings with five not outs boosting his average up to 75. His strike rate of 153.06 was the best of the all Sri Lankan batsmen with Dilshan finishing second on 144.74.

All the while the batsmen had won games and tournaments for the Sri Lankans in ODI cricket since the time they won the World Cup in 1996. Often, Sri Lanka’s bowling was considered to be a one-man army, with Muttiah Muralitharan doing the bulk of the work and Chaminda Vaas playing the second fiddle.

But the arrival of Ajantha Mendis and Lasith Malinga has made Sri Lanka bowling something dreaded by all opponents.

Mendis and Malinga were the top wicket takers for Sri Lanka, claiming 12 wickets each, but going wicketless in the final. Sangakkara was of the view that, had the team had posted more runs on the board, the story would have been entirely different.

Murali followed them a close second with nine wickets with both Isuru Udana and Mathews claiming five each.

Dilshan by far was the best batsman in the tournament and thoroughly deserved the Man of the Series award. He was the only batsman to score more than 300 runs in the competition while Jacques Kallis followed a distant second with 238 runs.

Sangakkara took on captaincy like a duck taking to water. Tactically he was sound and took the best off all his players, particularly the likes of Mendis, Dilshan, Udana and Mathews. Some of his spur-of-the-moment decisions like delaying the arrival of Mathews to the crease and promoting Udana ahead of him, made little sense in the face value, but it was evident that he was avoiding Mathews to be exposed too early to the attack.