When the Kiwis peck it hurts
View(s):It was August last year; though Sri Lanka’s two stalwarts Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardena at the tail end of their careers, the Lankan team did have that ramrod power in batting. In Galle it was easier; in spite a huge hundred by Younis Khan. A double hundred by Sangakkara, a half century by Jayawardena and a 91 by Angelo Mathews made short work of the Pakistani grit.
The second Test at the Singhalese Sports Club ground had more characteristics. It was more than just the end of another Test series. It was the last time that the illustrious duo Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardena were going to sport their Test crests together. It was also Mahela’s last Test match and a fitting finale was on the cards.
Unlike the first Test match, the second did not come on a platter. The visitors fought tooth and nail and even held on to a slender lead at the end of the first innings. However, a 107 run stand by the two Lankan greats — both making memorable half centuries — saw the match ending in the early hours of the fifth day. Thus the 17-year career of Jayawardena came to an end with a win in favour of the home team.
Though Sangakkara held on for a while longer, it was never the same again. Whenever Sangakkara played a Test match, the Lankans won — and then they missed his services, the result went awry in most cases. So the significance of this association could be depicted as consistency. The Lankan batting was not shy to plough the field and reap the harvest. The result – the Lankan heads were held high and the outcome was positive.
But, in the post-Sangakkara-Mahela era, the Lankan batting is more topsy-turvy. It was amid this state of affairs that the Lankans padded up to take on the West Indies — a team of equal strength on paper. By the way, the Lankan hierarchy added another feature to the interim twist. Now the interim committee of Sri Lanka had an interim head coach to take care of the Lankan team which arguably was one of the weakest on paper. Besides skipper Angelo Mathews and Rangana Herath the team could not boast of any big contributors.
This was the challenge that was handed over to Coach Jerome Jayaratne. To take up and conquer odds in a thankless proposition – a job thrust upon him by need rather than want. However, the difficult part is over. Since August last year, the Lankans have won a Test series – both comprehensively, once again on paper.
Yet, there was no roar after the success from the coach’s bench. We wondered why. Jayaratne explained the proposition in this manner: “For instance, say that we were coming up with the blueprint of a building. The end result – the building should be an elaborate affair.
Jerome Jayaratne will be incharge of the Lankan cricketers during their tour of New Zealand also. Pic by Amila Gamage
“We, as a coaching team, draw up the best possible blueprint with no room for errors. Yet, at the end of the day the building is put up by someone else. Though the blueprint is impressive, if the builders do not live up to expectations, the whole exercise becomes futile.
“We had the same sentiments after the recent Test series, even though we had won it. It was not collective. The bowlers stuck to their tasks. At no point, did the bowlers let up. Every time it seems that the plot was going awry, a wicket was on the card. The catching department also lived up to its tasks.
“However the same could not be said about the batting. There were more ifs than positive answers in the whole effort.”
The Lankan coach was critical about the lack of consistency. He said the hallmark of a successful Test outfit is its consistency. He said both Dimuth Karunaratne and Dinesh Chandimal scored big hundreds in the first innings and with that success the Lankans coasted a huge win in Galle. However, when in the second test, both first Test centurions made only insignificant scores in both innings.
“That was unacceptable. They had the potential to be good players, but they have the tendency to let it off the hook at times. To be a good successful team, consistency is the key word. There is no room for complacency,” added Jayaratne. At this end we have more to add. May be the Lankans were good enough to beat the West Indies in both Test matches at home.
However just see how the Lankans won the second Test match. They had totals of 200 and 206. We too agree the totals were far too meagre by any standards.
In both innings it was southpaws Milinda Siriwardena — and Rangana Herath to a lesser extent — who held the pack to poll scores over two hundred. It seems that the bottom half of the Lankan batting is not interested in keeping the eggs in the basket. In spite of the coaching department keeping a ‘ton’ of faith in the abilities of Kusal Janith Perera, his free spirits prevailed. The other significant mess-up was made by Dilruwan Perera. At that juncture the Lankan batting was looking at a total of 250 plus and batting the opposition out of contention.
At this end we are pretty sure the message would have been to bat along with skipper Mathews who was batting on forty plus.
Dilruwan who was concentrating more on his batting at one juncture has a debut Test score of 95. Yet, he chose to hoist a six, score a single and present a dolly to the midway in his short stay at the crease.
This is the discipline that we must inculcate in the Lankan lower order. Generally in a good Test outfit, the tail end is hard to dislodge, like the match-winning partnerships that lower Indian batting order put up against the Lankans in their last series.
The team should learn that the runs from the tail-enders are worth as much as the top order. There have been countless instances where the tail-end runs had won matches for international teams. So, picking a wicket or more may be your job and that is why the team has chosen them into the playing eleven. Yet, that does not mean that their responsibility as a batsman is absolved.
Now it is imperative that the coaching staff gets the guys who have finished their duties with the Test squad and get them to bat round the clock and inculcate the habit of building an inning.
A few days after the West Indies tour, they have to get involved in a more serious act of facing the Kiwis. Early this year the Lankan team even with the help of Sangakkara could not make much headway against New Zealand. They are a team that is ascending.
It will be up to the coaching staff to mould this fledgling team to a workable outfit. Generally the public does not go by the composition of the team. They are only interested in the result. A difficult proposition, indeed, but, that is the stark truth. When the Kiwis peck it hurts.