World Cup 2019: Five players who deserved more chances

#2 Avishka Fernando (Sri Lanka)

Avishka Fernando after scoring his maiden ODI and WC ton.

Sri Lanka had a rather dour World Cup campaign as they could muster only 3 wins from 9 games and were arguably lucky that 2 games were washed out as they were likely to be outplayed in them. Their batting was the main issue as barring Kusal Perera, no player could show enough aggression and players like Kusal Mendis and Angelo Mathews failed more often than not.

In a must-win game against England, the Lankans, tired of Lahiru Thirimanne's failure at the No. 3 spot, brought in young Avishka Fernando to bat there. The young gun blasted a 32-ball 49 in a game which they somehow won due to a brilliant showing with the ball.

Fernando meanwhile was in no mood to waste his chance as he scored a hundred against the West Indies which powered them to a total in excess of 300 in their penultimate league stage match, showcasing his huge batting talent. In all, the right-hander made 204 runs from just 4 innings averaging 50.75 and scoring at a brilliant strike-rate of 105.72. Had he been given more chances, Sri Lanka could have definitely had a crack at making the semis.