Pathum Nissanka’s selection into Sri Lanka’s white-ball sides based on his first-class average over 60 embodied Sri Lanka’s longstanding theory that red-ball skills still hold sway in white-ball cricket. Sri Lanka were also content with Nissanka’s ‘progress’ in white-ball cricket as his low-risk, low-variant approach conformed to their inclination toward assurance over belligerence. However, by reinventing his white-ball batting and succeeding, Nissanka has debunked Sri Lanka without penalising them. This article tries to reverse-engineer his resurgence to find out how he managed to achieve it.
The dataset for this analysis was obtained thanks to Himanish Ganjoo. The shot types and lengths in this dataset are manually labelled, hence may not be accurate. The dataset is also not exhaustive, includes matches only until the West Indies tour of Sri Lanka, and the sample size on Nissanka’s batting since 2024 is small, but nevertheless useful enough to provide a fair idea about his areas of improvement.
Nissanka’s numbers before and since 2024 stand as a testimony to his new white-ball incarnation, painting a stark contrast despite Sri Lanka doctoring pitches at home heavily in favour of spin in 2024. In ODIs, he had struck at 84.7 across 49 innings with 4.67 boundaries per innings before 2024. However, since 2024 until New Zealand’s tour of Sri Lanka, he struck at 106.44 across 12 innings with 8.58 boundaries per innings. He had hit just 9 sixes before 2024 but almost twice as much in 2024 with 17 sixes. A similar trend can be observed in T20Is as he went from striking at 112.15 to 137.11, while his boundaries per innings improved from 3.07 to 4.71.
There is also a conspicuous improvement in his intent commensurate with the increase in his strike rate. He had attacked 45.6% and 49.7% of the balls against pace and spin before 2024 in ODIs. In 2024, until the end of the West Indies tour of Sri Lanka, he attacked 55.3% and 51% of the balls against pace and spin. In T20Is, this number went from 57.8% to 70.5% against pace and from 56.4% to 63.5% against spin.
This spike in intent has also meant that he played lofted shots more often in 2024 than he had ever. Against pace, he had lofted just 8.28% of the balls before 2024 in ODIs. In 2024, he lofted 18.77% of the balls. Against spin, this went up to 15.61% from just 7.79%. Again, we can observe a similar trend in T20Is. The percentage of lofted shots increased from 24.88% to 36.70% against pace and from 13.36% to 34.92% against spin.
It will be interesting to see how he translated this high intent into performance in terms of the areas of the field he accessed, and the shots he played.
Between fine leg and square leg, Nissanka’s strike rate against pace rose from 139.39 to 186.67. This holds in T20Is as well, with his strike rate improving from 151.56 to 211.11. However, unlike in ODIs, we can also observe an increase in his strike rate against spin in T20Is, as his strike rate saw an increase from 115.38 to 154.55. Nonetheless, it is not easy to attribute this improvement behind square to any particular shot as the sample size for individual shots is too small.
There is also an increase in Nissanka’s strike rate from square leg to mid-wicket across both formats, against both spin and pace. Against pace, his strike rate went up from 101.10 to 153.57 in ODIs and from 163.29 to 286.96 in T20Is. Against spin, it moved up from 123.85 to 208.11 in ODIs and from 147.73 to 243.75 in T20Is.
This massive improvement in strike rate can be ascribed to Nissanka pulling, slogging, and sweeping more in this region with a higher strike rate. 18.92% of his shots against spin in this region in ODIs in 2024 were sweeps, almost a two-fold jump from 9.23%. The strike rate of sweeps in this region also rose from 358.33 to 400. Furthermore, the percentage of slogs in this region against pace in ODIs swelled from 2.75% to 12.5%, with the strike rate improving from 240 to 314.29.
At the same time, the percentage of his pulls and their strike rate went up against both spin and pace in both formats. Against pace, the pull shot was employed in this region 26.79% of the time in ODIs in 2024, in contrast to 23.08% before 2024, while the strike rate grew from 192.86 to 266.67. In T20Is, this shot against pace was utilised even more frequently as the rise from 18.99% to 30.43% would attest. The strike rate also moved up from 240 to 385.71. A similar trend can be observed against spin, as the percentage increased from 23.08% to 29.73% in ODIs and from 18.18% to 43.75% in T20Is, with the strike rate progressing from 240 to 390.91 and 162.5 to 271.43 respectively.
The long-off and cover regions also became fertile regions for Nissanka in 2024. His strike rate against pace through long-off in ODIs increased from a paltry 41.6 to 102.86, thanks chiefly to his drives. 65.71% of the shots he played through this region in 2024 were drives, a jump from 48%. His strike rate when driving through long-off also rose sharply from 75 to 156.52, suggesting an improvement in either placement, power or both.
Through covers, Nissanka’s strike rate against pace increased from 77.74 to 108.70 in ODIs. In T20Is, it went up from 82.02 to 135.29 against pace and from 73.47 to 138.89 against spin. A chief contributor to this increase was his cut shots. Cuts constituted 18.48% of all shots through covers against pace in ODIs in 2024, a sharp rise from 10.62%. His strike rate also rose from 148.39 to 182.35. This holds in T20Is, as his cuts against pace went up from 6.74% to 29.41%, while his strike rate soared from 66.67 to 250. Against spin in T20Is, even though the percentage of cuts remained almost the same, his strike rate improved from 84.21 to 171.43.
Another feature of Nissanka’s startling growth in white-ball cricket is the addition of reverse sweep to his repertoire to access the region between third man and point against spin. He played a total of 7 reverse sweeps against spin in 2024 fetching 20 runs between third man and point.
In summary, Nissanka used his pulls, slogs and sweeps heavily between fine-leg and mid-wicket, while using his drives and cuts between covers and long-off to increase his rate of scoring. Additionally, he also used reverse sweeps against spin to expand his range. Not only did he play these attacking shots more frequently, but he also improved his strike rate with these shots, implying that he could be generating more power behind these shots now.
However, despite his massive improvements in 2024, his scoring down the ground remained fallow. His preference to pull, cut, sweep, and slog to the leg means bowlers could straitjacket him by bowling full and straight. Even though there were signs of him improving his drives against pace in ODIs, especially through covers and long-off, the strike rates of his drives through covers and long-off dropped from 182.61 and 191.67 during the powerplay to 127.78 and 118.18 outside the powerplay. Although this decline is expected when the field is spread out, it also points to his inability to clear the field in these regions, which can be exploited to prevent him from scoring freely.
However, given his mastery over the flick shot and his shorter stature that allows him to free his arm and drive to covers even when the ball is marginally wider, one could argue that he still has options to get out of jail against this ploy. Nevertheless, against spin, his options are limited. The absence of pace on the ball makes flick shots less productive, so spinners can bowl straighter, taking cover drives out of the equation. Nissanka may have to use his feet or step-hit to give himself more options against spin.
That said, the data also has interesting observations that contravene the general trend in Nissanka’s batting. For instance, his strike rate between third man and long-off against spin in ODIs declined even though his strike rate through covers against spin in T20Is increased. His strike rate through long-off against pace decreased in T20Is but increased in ODIs. He also struck faster through long-on in T20Is unlike in ODIs. Given the anomalous pitches and the smaller sample size, it is difficult to explain these observations.
In conclusion, Nissanka has done the unthinkable for a Sri Lankan batter by transforming himself from a red-ball batter to an excellent ODI batter and a decent T20 batter. The transformation saw him attack more with more power. Nonetheless, his range remains limited, which may, given the unforgivable nature of white-ball cricket, haunt him in the future as bowlers work him out, especially as his excellent 2024 puts him in the spotlight.
