A battering in the waiting
View(s):After five long years, our neighbour India is making a brief visit to Sri Lanka – only for three Test matches. I personally term, from a Sri Lankan angle, this as the most inopportune period for any team of this strength to make its presence felt in this island. The simple reason – are the Lankan cricketers up to a challenge of this magnitude?
The predicament that the Lankans have fallen to, I will not term as a transition period. Heck of a lot of people are taking pains to explain that the Lankans are trying to adjust to the period in the aftermath of the Sangakkara-Jayawardena reign. But, I prefer to term it as the repercussion of not managing our bowling in the aftermath of Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas and the over-dependence in aging left arm spinner Rangana Herath expecting him to perform miracles. Remember, even the world’s most famous magician, Harry Houdini, or any of the world’s other sages failed to live forever.
The Indians are making the tour under their new age superstar – twenty-six-year-old Virat Kholi who is also making the tour with a comparatively young side with the oldest being the time-tested off spinner Harbhajan Singh who is on the good side of thirty-five.
It is not the youth that intrigues me in the Indian team. It is the all-round qualities that the selectors have imbedded in the touring squad. The batting that begins with Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kholi, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara is strong on paper.
The bowling hopes are set upon off- spinners Ravichandran Ashwin, Harbhajan Singh and leg-spinner Amit Mishra along with part time spinner Rohit Sharma. Then the pace trio of Umesh Yadav, Varun Arun and Ishant Sharma could deliver the ball to the batsmen at speeds of over 140km while swinger Buwanesh Kumar could rock the Lankan batsmen while on song.
With the new world order in cricket, where India, England and Australia hold the whip in international cricket while countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the West Indies live to pick-up the pieces. International cricket in the world order is certainly imbalanced. Indians are touring Sri Lanka after five years and Bangladesh will soon play host to Australia after nine years. So to keep up with the Joneses the Lankans will have to keep working outside the ‘Big Three’ frame and that surely not going to be easy.
In the foreseeable future Kholi and his men will get the choicest of cuts in the cricket calendar while being magnanimous at times to throw a cricket playing nation an unprofitable three Test tour. Yet, the Lankans have to take it; if not in the next turnabout even that piece of meat will not be there.
Just imagine the last Lankan tour of India. The West Indies had just abandoned an ongoing tour of India. The TV moguls were screaming their heads off crying foul. They were to lose a lot of money. The then Lankan hierarchy just to curry favour with the rich cricket merchant next door sent a half trained half baked team for five ODIs, for the Indian cricketers to play with. The result was precarious for the Lankan cricketers and its cricket morale. Then in the penultimate exercise before the 2015 World Cup, New Zealand trashed Sri Lanka. The 2015 World Cup results weren’t encouraging either.
With the International doors being opened to the Indian domestic tournament, the IPL, the Lankan cricketers were in hibernation as they were almost completely ignored. The Pakistani cricketers broke the limbo. They arrived in the island after a severe thrashing at the hands of the now high-riding Bangladesh outfit.
However, when they arrived on the island, the visitors changed their approach to the Lankan challenge and said that they had the answers to the vile of Herath and began to come out and meet the left armer in the middle. In the first Test Herath’s one wicket cost him nearly 130 runs while in the second Test Herath bagged 1 for 89 after not getting a single delivery to bowl in the first innings — that’s all the cricket that Herath played in that series.
Besides Herath’s prowess, the Lankan bowling arsenal is powerless and toothless. That was amply proved when the visitors ran into score an improbable victory in the third Test as well in the second T-20 which they lost a few days ago.
An SLC senior told me, “Just give us time till the West Indies arrive here, so that we could tighten up some of our lose ends.” I totally believe him. In all probabilities he was referring to the Lankan batting after Sanga-Mahela retirement. No Sir, what I am worried about is the Lankan bowling. In our wafer-thin attack, the most intelligent bowler by-far is part-timer Angelo Mathews. He stands several feet above the rest. I envy what he is doing with a speed of less than 130kms. Yet, with a chronic injury, he just cannot afford to sustain himself as a genuine allrounder.
Dhammika Prasad has developed into a wicket taking bowler, but, he certainly is not a bowler who could take you to the post singlehandedly. Dushmantha Chameera looked very promising for the future, but a side strain is keeping him out temporarily. Still he has to learn some tricks from the hat. Shaminda Eranga shows streaks of brilliance like the delivery in the penultimate ball in the second Test against England in England. A sudden well directed bouncer in the ball before the end of play brought Sri Lanka their maiden Test series win against England on their soil. Besides that, the Lankans definitely does not have the necessary cutting edge in their bowling to bag twenty wickets in a Test match.
In the same breath the Indians have the fire-power. Before leaving for Sri Lanka skipper Kholi said, “That (playing with five bowlers) could be a big possibility. The idea is to take 20 wickets…. That’s that only way you win a Test match and I strongly believe we need to have the best bowlers playing in the squad.”
Off spinner P.H.T. Kaushal looked good for a short while, but I wonder if he could strike the right chord bowling on his own. No one becomes a genius in just one series. Generally, in world history, bowlers have hunted in a pack or in pairs and I wonder if Herath and Kaushal could blend into harmony? So far in my life time the only bowler who has been the lone gunman and won battles for Sri Lanka has been Herath. Yet, with age catching up and his tired knees, how long could he sustain?” The only answer would be a left arm-right-arm partnership between the two trundlers. If not I wonder what could happen!