Sports
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comes the real test! First they made short work of the young West Indian side with some additional shopping days made for the visitors. Then in the ensuing tri-nation ODI series they dropped only one match to wear the crown while beating India. Now in their latest exploit they have thrashed the daylights out of the Bangladesh outfit who faced more than their fair share of hiccups once coming into the field among the ‘big boys’ of cricket.With all these accomplishments and accolades in their bags, can the Lankan team be happy and relax – like the normal mundane do after a hard days work? Or else do some of them have recurring nightmares after a dismal string of failures with the bat? The Lankan hierarchy is well aware that the honeymoon is over and here onwards until it comes to the real crunch of the World Cup it’s going to be a hard grind where we will be facing most of the opposition in their own dens– matches against India, New Zealand, Australia and England being played away from home while they will be taking on South Africa and Pakistan at home with the Asia Cup in India sandwiched in between. This will be Sri Lanka’s World Cup prelude (scheduled to be played in the West Indies) and the run along with Tom Moody till March-April 2007. So far the itchy part of the episode is, are the Sri Lankan batting top rungers ready for the battles ahead? So far in the four Test matches played Sri Lankan batsmen overpowered their opposition and stamped their supremacy over them, but were the Lankan performances with the bat convincing? Arguably the most experienced opening pair in the world– Sanath Jayasuriya and Marvan Atapattu who has a long string of personal achievements that could fill up a few A4 papers have repeatedly fallen short of expectations. In Jayasuriya’s last five innings where he has graced the wicket his scores have been 15, 2, 36, 46 and 13 while his captain Atapattu’s record is also a disappointing 28, 17, 19, 18 and 11. Both these batsmen have got these scores to their credit while the rest of the Sri Lanka contingent was engaged in a bloody merciless minnow bashing. Then the rest of the top order also has not been as consistent as a top professional side would like see their prize horses performing. Mahela Jayawardena in his last five outings at the crease had scores of 41, 6, 43, 63 and 4 and thus failing to convert mediocre scores to scores of substance while only Kumar Sangakkara seems to have believed in himself when he hammered a huge century against the West Indian side at his own home grounds at Asgiriya. At the same time Sri Lanka should be thankful for the discovery of young Thilan Samaraweera right there in the middle order. Gradually this young man seems to be filling up the void created by Arjuna Ranatunge even though the two batsmen are poles apart where technique is concerned. Whereas Arjuna was a natural eyeball player who had an inborn instinct on things to come and played by heart, while Samaraweera is a dogged player who plays every ball on its own merit and really knows the value of his wicket. However both these players have one thing in common. That is, they place a huge prize on their wicket and seldom do they give it away without a fight. However the Lankan top rankers must remember whenever they failed in the four games, they failed against the new moving ball – against the West Indies and Bangladesh who were carrying two medium pace bowlers who had an accumulated total of less than six matches between them. Yet against the moving ball at times our top order seemed to be clueless. Since the advent of the Moody law there is another very evident factor which is quite visible. Now in the few matches played so far their fielding had been more purposeful and spilled only a forgettable number of catches. This is a healthy sign of a prospering side. Yet again it must be mentioned our bowling department seems to be in safe hands at present. The pace attack is well balanced with Malinga and Dilhara Fernando assisting the evergreen Vaas with Nuwan Zoysa and Mahroof on the wings while Muralitharan can rely on Upul Chandana, Malinga Bandara (right arm leg spin), Sajeewa Weerakoon and Rangana Herath ( left arm orthodox spin ) while Jayasuriya, Dilshan and Samaraweera too can bowl a few useful overs if the need arises. All
in all this is not the time to make any drastic changes or unnecessary
experiments as the near future ahead will be crunch time and Sri
Lanka will need all the experience that they have in their ranks
while snapping up all the raw talent available for their crusade
towards the World Cup. |
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