No. 3, will you please stand up

Kusal Perera 

Test record: 565 runs at average of 31.38Record at No. 3: 244 runs at 30.50

The incumbent. The short-arm jabbing, strong forearm-heaving, barnstorming, non-doping, mass aneurism giver. In Perera’s defence, in 2016 he has gone through an ordeal few sportsmen will ever have to experience and is doing a fine job of moving on. However, he does not always seem to trust his defence, which is odd, since there is nothing outrageously wrong with it.

Perera has also made the mistake of playing two of the worst shots of his career in the single Test. This has been particularly irksome on account of his being a wildly unorthodox Test match No. 3. His average there is boosted by a century against Zimbabwe, which, in addition, does not convince many that he deserves more time in the job.

If ever he succeeds in the position, however, he is capable of ravishing attacks early in the game, and wresting momentum for Sri Lanka before the more stable middle-order players arrive.

Upul Tharanga

Test record: 1324 runs at 33.10Record at No. 3: 94 runs at 47.00.

Few players are as divisive in Sri Lanka cricket fandom as Tharanga. For the acolytes, he is the laidback, whippet-thin messiah with a back cut that elicits squeals and a cover drive so glorious you will wet yourself. Tharanga detractors, meanwhile, will moan loud and long that instead of a normal cricket bat, Tharanga uses a metre-long, 1.5kg outside edge.

He has, however, largely been ineffective on major tours. In Bangladesh and Zimbabwe Tharanga has a monstrous record, but he averages less than 25 in England, New Zealand, India and Sri Lanka.

There is a good argument that many of those innings were played so long ago, they are no longer indicative of Tharanga’s value to the …

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