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Hey! it’s time to ponder
By S.R. Pathiravithana
After their Tsunami shock and a not so promising New Zealand tour which was followed by a short lay off from cricket, the local cricket icons were back in the fray. However this time they were pitted against the remainder of a team which has been on the slide in their fortunes for the past decade or so.
Playing against these remnants, as expected, the Sri Lankan team who are the fifth in the fortune scales of the ICC, thrashed the daylights out of them sparing over two days of gruelling cricket from the two test matches.

But in spite of the convincing wins, did the local team go unscathed? Many do not think so. During this half-cock duel even the local team was exposed. Only their experience and a handful of individual noteworthy performances added with the fact that they were playing at home under their own conditions that brought them the expected result. Had they played this same outfit so many thousands of km away in the west, may be the result would have been different.

In both matches the first innings finished on even keel, from that point onwards it was only the experience of the local cricketers that prevailed.
In the first Test the majority of the top order batsmen failed and that was put down to the ‘Monday blues’ after their long week-end away from cricket. Then it was the bats of the bowlers who were in the county circuit without a break that came to their rescue.

The first innings of the second Test was even worse. The top order flopped and the bottom order followed suit. The second inning would have been the same, if not for the timely realization of reality by one batsman in Kumar Sangakkara. Prior to his inning he spelled out and admitted that he had gone wrong on three occasions and he was determined to go back to the basics. He did go to the basics and it was evident through his innings and the rest became history.

To the credit of the West Indies, even though their attack was not the best that they could lay their hands upon; the youngsters stuck to their basics and reaped the harvest. They were undone only when the experience of the local batsmen led by Sangakkara prevailed and quickly the raw hands ran out of ideas mainly due to the lack of exposure at that level.

However can the rest of the local top order batsmen be satisfied with their performances? In the four innings they batted they failed to dominate even after getting into half witted scores. Marvan Atapattu failed to get off his stride in all four innings and this someone may be able to excuse because he just failed and a good batsman does not go on failing for ever. But, what about the rest of the other batsmen? Jayasuriya once got into his thirties and got out. Mahela, Dilshan, Thilan got into their stride and slipped. This cannot be excused as had the opposition been a more experienced one, the Lankans would certainly fallen flat on their faces.

Then came the biggest chink in the armour!!! The bowling!! Admittedly besides Chanderpaul none of the other batsmen were Test timbre and some may even would have found it difficult to make it into the Lankan ‘A’ squad. However only the time tested stalwarts in Vaas and Muralitharan had to come yet again to the aid of the Lankan captain and help him sail home. Malinga bowled well in patches and never looked menacing and was never in contention for a five wicket haul. Rookie Wijekoon also failed to impress and many would vote for Mahroof for this slot purely because fact that the latter has a better temperament when it comes to ‘big time’.

The biggest disappointment was the ever declining Herath. After a promising enough start this bowler’s performance has been on the decline even though the local selectors kept their faith in him (especially when one takes it in the context of it being done in preference to all rounder Upul Chandana who was playing in the county circuit when the rest of the local cricketers were taking the break). The fact is in the last eight innings of test cricket Herath has taken eight wickets at an enormous cost of 427 runs. Indeed this is too much of a luxury at this level of cricket. May be Sanath Jayasuriya could trundle those same amount of overs and get better results or the same….what does it matter? However at the same time the selectors will have the luxury of playing an additional batsman or a bowler.

These are early times, the following will be the triangular which will be a different kettle of fish as it is limited overs cricket. But this will be a more gruelling affair as they will also be pitted against India who in every sense will be a real cricket ream as against the team that they were pitted against in the Test series.

This is serious. However it gives us food for thought. Mr. Tom Moody and Mr. Selector please switch your lap tops on and also put on your thinking caps please.

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