Sports

Sports

Time to plug those chinks
By S.R. Pathiravithana
Is it a shame to be the second best? Well…. we really were the second best a while ago and were relegated to the seventh position under a trail of failures and now we have climbed one slot up the ladder to be the sixth best out of the lot after redeeming our lost prestige somewhat. However now it is time that we plug those chinks in our armour that has let us down in the recent past.

Playing Australia on Aussie soil is as hard a task as having a glass full of plain bittergourd juice on an empty stomach early morning. Added to that taking the champion Aussies to a full quota of three finals is indeed a great achievement to a sixth best team who are still recovering from their India-Kiwi shell shock.

It is a well established and time tested fact that Australia is the most clinical and technologically perfect cricketing outfit going at present. At the same time they take their game very seriously and try to perform akin to a programmed robot – being nearly one hundred per cent perfect most of the time. Annihilating them on their own back yard is well nigh impossible, but stretching them to a certain extent and taking an odd game away from them is always possible. However after taking one away from them and maintaining the tempo can become a problem to any of the other nine Test playing nations who are at present affiliated to the ICC.

Sri Lanka after their initial debacles in their early overseas wars and how they got their entire armada sunk in India and New Zealand and the manner in which they rallied themselves up until they finally tasted the Brisbane Bitter is commendable. This goes on to prove that the Lankans do possess something more than raw talent in them. The Sri Lankans are not as clinical as the Australians, so the question that has to be asked is, did we do the right things at the right times or else did we do the right things at times and kept on repeating some mistakes over and over which may have cost us dear at the end.

Let us back track and try to capture some of those chinks in the Lankan armour. Sri Lanka opened the tour at the Docklands Stadium in Melbourne and made a hash of it, failing in both batting and bowling. In this game batting on top of the order were three green horns in Upul Tharanga, Jehan Mubarak and Michael Van Dort coming in at No. 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Whatever made our tour management make that move I could not understand, but the only excuse that I could muster myself was that they may have lost their bearings after the initial battering in India and New Zealand. But, they made amends soon. At that point Sanath Jayasuriya who was left behind at home due to his shoulder injury was back in the side on special permission.

This reunion made a huge impact on the morale of the team. The team that looked a rag-tag band wagon in the previous game looked an oven fresh, combat ready outfit and did not sweat much to beat the champions themselves. The difference? Sanath was there at the helm of batting and took the home team bowlers by the scruff of their necks and made a belligerent 114 in a lesser number of balls that had them bewildered.

Anyway all that is known history, so may we delve on to the more intricate matters? It is good even at the latter stages of the tour, that skipper Marvan Atapattu agreed to go back to open the innings. Calls behind the curtain say that it took a great deal of convincing for the skipper to get back to the place where he really belongs. But, once in there he got his act back and batted as usual. This was good for him and for Sri Lanka cricket in their quest in the West Indies once year hence.

What were the other follies? Wasn’t it imprudent to hold young Chamara Kapugedera for so long while Jehan Mubarak, seemingly with lesser talent, got an unusually extended ride at the top and then in the middle. Was Nuwan Kulasekera’s contribution more important to the side than Malinga Bandara’s? The latter must be breathing a sigh of relief as now the ICC has decided to have another look at the super-sub system.

However it was not a tournament where wickets prepared for bowlers and the side which had better batting and could also work under pressure won the day. In spite of all this, leg spinner Malinga Bandara became the only bowler to emerge into the world scene in this tournament. Certainly we could have treated him better.

Another fact is that a gruelling tour of Australia at times becomes a launching pad for certain teams. The present Pakistan side is one that has made the maximum from their last tour Down Under.

Back at home the local selectors have decided to go on the tour of Bangladesh without skipper Atapattu, Chaminda Vaas (rested) while staggering the services of the other two seniors – Sanath Jayasuriya and Muttiah Muralitharan.

Musings turned to veteran Sidath Wettimuny for his view on the matter.
The former Test opener who has also served as a cricket selector was unperturbed. He said that this would not have a impact on the team as such and said that in a way it was a good move. “The World Cup is a year away and initially we need about 18-20 players for the next few months before we prune it down to 16, before we go to the final fourteen just before the tournament.

“However I feel the biggest Test for us will come when we take on Pakistan. This is going to be a gruelling one and from there on we are going to England. So I see that part of the year is very important and that will be the real testing period for us.”

With these words of comfort we too feel that the train is on track. Now it is important to run it at full throttle without derailing it.

Top