With Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and Muttiah Muralitharan in their ranks, Sri Lanka did not lose a lot of test matches at home during their peak.
However, the team's performance has deteriorated quite a lot of late, with Sri Lanka losing 8 of their last 11 test matches at home. The team has lost 4 test matches against England, 3 against India and one against New Zealand.
Their poor run began with India registering a 304 run victory in the first test match of the three match series at Galle in 2017. The visitors then beat Sri Lanka by an innings and 53 runs in the 2nd test match.
By the time the third test match arrived, India well and truly had the upper hand over the opposition as they registered another handsome victory by a margin of an innings and 171 runs.
South Africa then arrived on the Sri Lankan shores and lost the test match at Galle by 278 runs and the one at Colombo by 199 runs. However, visiting England then got the better of Sri Lanka in 2018 to register at 3-0 clean sweep.
England won the first match of the series by 211 runs. The second match was won by England by 57 runs. The third and the final match of the series also went to England by 42 runs as they won the series 3-0 in dominating fashion.
Sri Lanka won the first test match of a two match test series against New Zealand at home but lost the second one by a massive margin of an innings and 65 runs. They lost their most recent fixtures against England at Galle by 7 wickets and 6 wickets respectively to further botch their home record.
Their plummeting returns at home are also reflected in the fact that they have conceded a first innings lead of 250 or more in home test matches on 7 occasions, with the team losing each and every time.
However, this has generally been the case when the team has batted second. The last time that Sri Lanka batted first in a home test match and conceded a lead of 250 or more, before doing it against England this year, was back in 2000 in a test match at Galle against Pakistan.
On the India tour of Sri Lanka in 2017, the visitors batted first on all the three occasions and took a lead of 250 or more to register a much-deserved clean sweep.
