Is the Lankan pace icon Lasith Malinga losing the eggs in his basket? The question was posed many a time when he was operating especially in Sri Lanka during the past few moons. From the day that the Lankan selectors decided to give this unorthodox fast bowler a break he hit the billboards. He is [...]

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Is Malinga losing his magic ball?

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Is the Lankan pace icon Lasith Malinga losing the eggs in his basket? The question was posed many a time when he was operating especially in Sri Lanka during the past few moons.

From the day that the Lankan selectors decided to give this unorthodox fast bowler a break he hit the billboards. He is one of those Sri Lankans who generates genuine pace which comes along with his ‘sling-arm action’.

In his first outing against the mighty Australians in Darwin in 2004, on an awkward wicket he bagged six wickets – two in the first innings and four in the second. In a losing exercise as a team, Malinga won his initial battle. He made a name for himself. His bowling action became a media topic and even the umpires had to change their position behind the stumps while Malinga was operating.

Three years later Malinga hit the headlines again – this time at the 2007 Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean. Sri Lanka’s Super Eights opener against South Africa was drifting towards the Proteas’ dressing room. With four runs to win the Southern tip cricketers had lost only five wickets.

Up to that point Malinga was also a big contributor to Lanka’s woes. He was going over six runs an over without a wicket and also had missed two direct hits at the wicket. Yet skipper Mahela Jayawardene’s faith in Malinga’s skills paid off when he suddenly brought the game back to life. First he bamboozled Shaun Pollock with a slower ball before hurrying Andrew Hall with a toe crushing yorker that looped up to cover. In the first ball of the next over Malinga completed a hat-trick — the fifth in World Cups, when he had the highest scorer Jacques Kallis nicking to the wicketkeeper Sangakkara before another beauty of a yorker zoomed past Makhaya Ntini’s bat.
Then his bobbed hair and unconventional appearance began to hit the headlines and the Malinga concept was established. With the entire world’s attention on him, the lad from the backwoods of Galle, who may have ended up quite contrastingly if not for his bowling skills did not lose his mettle.

His bowling began to rattle batsmen from all corners of the world, but a knee injury that he picked up during Sri Lanka’s 2007 Australian tour threatened his career. While he was injured, his topsy-turvy relationship with former national cricket Captain, Arjuna Ranatunga, when the latter was the head of Sri Lanka Cricket’s interim committee, brought some commas and semi-colons to his career.

Simultaneously two things occurred: Malinga’s association with the Mumbai Indians became larger than life and he became as big as any Indian demigod could be. If the franchise could give Malinga the ‘keys to Mumbai city’ they would do so.

At the same time the Vaas-Murali combination was coming to an end. Malinga’s requirement in Lankan national cricket became more important to the Lankan outfit and its selectors than ever. Yet, last year by the time Muttiah Muralitharan took his 800th wicket and bade adieu to international cricket, little did the Lankan dressing room know that they were also in-line to lose Malinga from Test cricket.

After the 2011 Indian engagement, Malinga retired from Test cricket and remained in the shorter versions of the game in international cricket. During this time Malinga’s influence in the Mumbai Indians dressing room became worth its weight in gold.

During the last IPL season Malinga missed two matches due to injury which prompted him to return home to seek medical treatment and the Mumbai Indians lost both matches. At present Malinga is the all-time leading wicket-taker in the IPL.

However, while turning out for Sri Lanka since the last IPL, Malinga’s performances have been inconsistent and on the decline. Now he fails to hit the pitch with an upright seam, and has dipped in his variations. His slow bouncers have been erratic and the good length balls are being taken care of by batsmen. Even Malinga’s trademark toe crushing yorker is not as lethal as it used to be.
In the eleven innings in the recent CB series in Australia in February-March this year, Malinga took 18 wickets at 35, with an economy rate of above 6.

Then during the recent SLPL games, more was expected from Malinga by his franchise owners who went by the IPL statistics, but, barring a single four wicket haul his performances were as good as any other local bowler who was on show.

So far during the ICC Twenty-20 World Championships, Malinga has failed to impress, in spite of his skipper Mahela Jayawardene putting a lot his pennies in his slot. In the warm-up game against the West Indies, Malinga bowled his four overs for twenty seven runs – not economical by his standards. Then against the Indians, in another warm-up, he went for a brow-raising 50 for 1 in four overs.

In the Super Eights opener against New Zealand his initial effort in the match proper was quite ordinary finishing his four overs for thirty runs. But his Super Over when it really mattered was very professional and delivered with his vast international experience more than his real inborn skill.

Then in the opening game of the real competition the little known Zimbabwe batsmen found no terrors in Malinga’s deliveries. He went for twenty runs in 2.3 overs. Then in the game against South Africa, the Proteas had little respect for him and he went for twenty seven runs in his allotted two overs in the seven-overs-a-side bang-bang.

In the aftermath of the Indian warm-up, I happened to read about the Indians bragging that they were able to read Malinga after his stint with the IPL. Yet, it was not so long ago that I saw these same batsmen struggling against Malinga when he was wearing the blue ‘Hero’ inscribed Mumbai Indians kit.

There is a section of people who tend to think that Malinga holds back some of his skills when he represents any side other than the Mumbai Indians who are his ‘bread winners’. Then there is another school of thought that his shoulder is falling and he is unable to generate the same venom and accuracy that he used to generate. On the contrary, some think that Malinga has no problem with his bowling, bowling arm or shoulder, but batsmen have learned and are leaving the crease when they face him and also use the flick and the short arm jab to his yorkers.

At this end we will keep watching. He does possess the skill and variations that is required at the international level. He has been in this game for long enough to learn about the intricacies of it. There are a few more games left for the Lankans in the super eights. Then, six months later, comes the Indian Premier League and I am sure some franchise is going to pick him up even if the Mumbai Indians don’t. At the end of that season we will really know what has gone wrong with Separamadu Lasith Malinga.




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