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India,
England vastly improved
Since then other nations are showing progress and worthy contender. New Zealand were the first team to attract some attention. A fully fit Chris Cairus, Nathan Astle, a batsman in peak form and a very positive Captain/batsman Stephen Fleming, edged Australia out of their home tri-nation series, the first time they ever suffered such an embarrassment Pakistan after beating Sri Lanka in Sharjah, a couple of months ago, are brimming with confidence and more recently over-powered the Aussies 2-1, in an off-season for the home team Pakistan are always capable but so unpredictable. With them you couldn't tell until the last wicket is captured or the winning run scored! . The form of England and India in the series in progress is certainly eyebrow raising. They have certainly progressed in all departments of the game. India's batting so often depended on their mega-star Sachin Tendulkar. Still good as ever, his contributions have reduced in recent times. On the rise in shouldering responsibility have been skipper Gangully and Rahul Dravid. Youngsters Vivendar Shewag and Yuvraj Singh have cemented two batting slots at the top and middle. At present they look settled. Most noticeable are the giant strides taken by Ajith Agakar, Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan. The left arm quick men are following a similar pattern of development. Their pace, ability to extract bounce off the pitch, bowl accurately, vary pace cleverly are improving with every outing. Now that Venkatesh Prasad and Javagal Srinath are not gracing cricket fields, these three youngsters have accepted the new ball job as theirs. Ajith Agarkar started promisingly, then ran into injury and poor form are seemed to be heading for early burn out. He has come back admirably. Accuracy and late in-swing are his weapons. In helpful English conditions he is making the most of those abilities at present. In my book Marcus Trescothick is the most improved batsman in the world over the past twelve months. Most noticeably his temperament is unwavering, timing near perfect and shot selection very sound. He looks very solid at the top of the order for England. There is plenty of experience shared between skipper Hussein, Thorpe, Knight and Stewart. Andy Flintoff is fast becoming one of the hardest hitters of a cricket ball. Add the intelligent batting of Collingwood and that is a very formidable line-up. Mind you, Mark Butcher is sidelined through injury. The weak link at present is their bowling. The seamers will perform satisfactorily in their home conditions. They have to work that aspect when they do battle in Australia and South Afirca. Most encouraging for their supporters is the tremendous improvement in their out cricket. The running between wickets is sensational. The ground fielding, catching and throwing has improved a hundred fold. They often lagged behind the others in these departments. Now the English have sensed the requirements for success and are earnestly applying themselves. Australia and South Africa will have many challenging teams, come March of next year. Will Sri Lanka be one of them? At present they have dug a hole and crept into it! There is plenty of one day cricket forthcoming. Bangladesh at home, the Mini World Cup also at home, South Africa, at the world cup venue, tri-nation series in India and Australia - a whole lot of cricket. They have to display great character from now on. Perhaps this kick in the pants is a blessing in disguise! Take it that way. The talent and ability is available. Total commitment and a one hundred percent honest effort from now on is what is required. The
England tour Putting all our eggs in the 'pace' basket does not seem to make much sense, for our slight frames sadly lack the muscle and strength to produce fearsome fast men of the calibre of the Larwood, Lindwall, Miller, Trueman, Tyson, Hall, Griffiths and Walsh. But I am certain it would make much more sense and be more beneficial if we were to concentrate in nurturing a couple of quality medium/quick medium pacers capable of controlled swing and movement backed by two, three or even four top quality spinners, for that surely is where our wealth lies. Men with supple wrists coupled with guile and subtlety is right down our street. But what do we do? We expend all our energies striving to produce the former. Spinners just don't spring from a hat. They take long to develop, the very nature of their trade demanding a prolonged gestation period and have to be given an extended trial. When we unearth a spinner of some promise, he is given a game or two where he may, more likely than not, get hit for plenty for little reward and is thereafter relegated to the dustbin to be heard of no more. That is not how you go about developing spinners. He has to be put through a proven spinners clinic [just as the 'fast' men enjoy the benefit of attending the M.R.F], and then given extended match play, to gain confidence and experience, and if the original judgement was spot on results will surely follow. FIRST TEST In the ensuing follow on, the gist of what was earlier laboured upon began to take on some meaning. When batting a second time, the Englishmen began to expose our threadbare attack to extricate themselves from a perilous situation and save the game. In this regard it must be mentioned that they were greatly helped by the fact that Vas, one of our better bowlers fell below expectations by not performing up to scratch coupled with the fact that the skipper, who apart from grassing 2 easy catches [sacrilegious in these circumstances or any other, for that matter] gave a poor performance by not attempting to take control of the game at this stage. Understandably, cruelly handicapped by having to take the field without our match-winning bowler, he could have been justified, despite the pre-match hype, in setting out in a defensive frame of mind, but having been thrust in the driving seat, however unexpectedly, he should have been resilient enough to reframe strategy and switch gears to get on the offensive to pressurize the opponents. This he failed to do, thereby playing into the hands of the opposition with deep set fields and making it easy for them to get off the hook. The match finally tailing off into a tame draw. In the process the ugly controversy of 'chucking' orchestrated by Botham and the English press took centre stage again. Also, in the brief dying stages of the game the Englishmen resorted to a totally unnecessary barrage of aggressive short pitched bowling which appeared to have escaped the censure of the 2 umpires. SECOND TEST Here was an ideal opportunity to have given Chandana a chance. He is a brilliant fielder, an utility bat and an adequate bowler lending variety to this department. Saying all this I am not unmindful that had Murali not played we would have been staring at a four figure mountain of runs and fully fit or not, he still bowled his customary marathon spell to pouch another 5 wicket haul. But what was worrying was whether it could have had a detrimental effect in the long run to his future career, which has a long way yet to go. However, I guess those on the spot were in a better position to judge than those ten thousand miles away. The wicket on the first day tended to seam a little and was somewhat sluggish and 'holding' thus not encouraging free stroke play which we revel in. But it turned out batting friendly when England occupied the crease the following day and they took full advantage of it to ran up another 500 run total. Here again I thought our strategy was found wanting in that with the score over the 200 run mark and with only one wicket down there was rightful justification in getting somewhat defensive at this stage. But we did not, and runs kept accruing at the rate of 4 an over. The main area of seepage was through the cover region to both left and right handers but for some reason this was left untenanted. It could have been plugged by the conventional offside 'sweeper' and saved us a bagful of runs. Nevertheless, quite unbashfully Botham and other T.V. commentators kept eulogizing the brilliance of the English batting, opting to keep the viewers ignorant of the following facts:- The psychological advantage gained by playing against a pitiful score on a good batting track which makes batting easy, a fast outfield, small grounds, ideal weather conditions and a woefully inadequate Test attack [discounting the half fit Muralitharan]. This and the condition of the wicket was amply demonstrated by our inability to dislodge even last man Hoggard in a record breaking last wicket stand. In the second innings we fared marginally better but not good enough to avoid a resounding innings defeat inside four days. Further, the body language of the entire team projected a defeatist attitude with little effort made by the skipper to boost morale and inspire a fight back. The worrying features at this stage were Jayasuriya's failure with the bat, Muralitharan's condition and the relatively slow progress of our new ball contingent. To salvage some prestige in the Third test we must hope for the return of Jayasuriya's confidence and batting form as well as an improved performance in his generalship. THIRD TEST Poor Upashantha seemed a misfit at this level of the game and retired to graze after an initial spell that yielded 37 runs in 5 overs to be followed later with 3 more overs for 28 making a grand total of 8 overs for 65. Hardly the tonic for an attack already grovelling in Poverty Street. Muralitharan [playing once again] came off from another lengthy spell for plenty, with only a single scalp at the end of the first day and England went to bed with a healthy 270 odd for 4. On the second day, also shortened due to rain and bad light, England advanced to 377 for 6. It must surely be a strange thing to say that I thought that England did not deserve to win this game only for the simple reason that they resorted to a negative attitude at this stage, particularly with the curtailment of time due to weather and light. With the psychological advantage of being 1 up in the series, the ONUS was on Sri Lanka to win the game and draw the rubber. Thus, it should have been to England's advantage to have forced the issue at this point and try to win the series 2-nil rather than to have opted to draw it and win it negatively. But fortunately for them Sri Lanka put the pressure on themselves with yet another poor batting display. Sadly, the current trend in any sport today is not to map a course for victory, but to first ensure safety from defeat before proceeding to embark on any thing more grandiose. This no doubt stems from the power of money. On day 3 England continued to extract maximum toll from the threadbare attack, and with a defensive mentality continued till they were all out just before tea for their third successive score of 500 plus. In the process two more climbed the 'century' wagon as did 3 of our bowlers by conceding 121, 154 and 137 runs for 2, 3 and 3 wickets respectively. I felt England could with some justification have declared around the 450 mark but did not, perhaps because Stewart was on course for a century, for fear of our batting strength or even for a lack of faith in their bowlers. Or were they still being haunted by the spectre of the 1998 Oval debacle? But that was another team, another match. However, all this fall by the wayside because the proof of the pudding is in the eating and England finally won, but only just. Sri Lanka began promisingly enough with a century opening stand, shared between 3 players and finished the day on 120 for the loss of Arnold's wicket for a cameo 60. However, next day was a disaster. Rain again delayed the start but on commencement Sri Lanka was unceremoniously snuffed out for a follow on total of 253 or 259 behind. The status of the game at this stage was coincidently identical [even in figures] to that in which England was placed in the First Test. But the difference was that England fought back with a resolve and character to salvage an honourable draw, though admittedly against a much more ineffectual attack. After another shortened penultimate day, Sri Lanka entered the final day at 63 for 1 to either sink, or swim in honour. It could be said they fell In between, first to flatter and then to fail, but not before another magnificent innings by Arnold which just failed to thwart the Englishmen. On hlndsight we could with some justification assume that the misfortune of losing the toss put us on the back foot straightaway, for we were denied the benefit of a lightening outfield of the first 3 days. My estimate is that we would have lost at least 80 runs which went into the kitty of the opponents instead. With rain and dampness it became progressively slower and heavier and I reckon that the 308 we scored on the fifth day could have been nearer 330/340 on the outfields of the first 2 days, and that could have made a difference. Another obvious setback was the loss of Atapattu with a damaged finger in the first innings, and had he been able to bat just a minimum of 3 overs it would have made it that much more difficult for England to clinch the match. However, all this was not to be. The final phase of the game was an utter shambles with the entire fielding side dumb struck with panic. No one seemed to know what was happening and the manner in which England batted in the last 6 overs does not augur well for us in the upcoming Triangular contest. Another point noted was the heavy artillery of short pitched deliveries fired rising shoulder and head high, only one or two of which I can recall as having been called a bouncer. Either I have misinterpreted the definition of a bouncer or the bumper rule applies only to the one day game! To my mind it was bordering on intimidation. Alex Tudor was adjudged "Man of the Match", but surely shouldn't it have been Arnold for his two magnificent innings? They may not have helped in winning the game but they just fell short of saving it and there is no rule to say that the award should go to someone from the winning team. It is only conventional. In any event they were sterling performances and indisputably highly commendable. At least one thing positive has come our way from this match and that is that we may have found a sounder batting order:- Jayasuriya, Arnold, Atapattu, Jaywardene, Sangakkara, Tillekeratne, Vaas and the bowlers [if any]. If de Silva is in contention he replaces Tillekaratne. |
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