Sri Lanka must not lose sight of reality

By C.H.Gunasekera

Though this article was written prior to the present Test series, it is still topical.

Time may be right just now, to take stock of our performance following immediately upon the recent English summer. When a young and inexperienced band of cricketers arrived in England in the beginning of summer and was struggling through the early county games, they were dubbed a band of ‘no-goodders’. In justification of this label, they crumbled in the first innings of the first test to be bundled out for a very mediocre reply in the face of a huge score of 551 for six, and made to follow on. They ended the second day having lost half their wickets for under a hundred runs to stare down the barrel. They fought back somewhat on the third morning to be dismissed for around 230 or so to be invited to the inevitable follow on.

They had a gigantic task from thereon to save the game which they did with a heroic rear guard action that lasted the next two and a half days, to score over 500 runs and salvage a highly meritorious and improbable draw. However, they failed to live up to the promise generated in this game and succumbed to a defeat in the second test. In the final match, to the surprise of all, they turned the form book upside down to annihilate the foe in convincing style to post a win in four days and draw the rubber.

This followed almost immediately by the ODIs where they saw Jayasuriya back to his former glory days playing a significant role in our success. However, his selection for the test matches was a classic example of the regressive thinking of our selectors who are looking at piece meal, short term gains in preference to the long term health of the game. The net result of all this was to block the advancement of a future prospect from gaining valuable experience in the test arena in this transitional stage. It did not smack of a sagacious move, or was it a question of lucre?

Next we have the bewildering omission of Malinga Bandara, where having bemoaned the fact for many years of not having a decent spinner to complement Muralitharan, that when one finally does turn up we throw him into the thrash can. He was considered only for the fourth and fifth ODI’s having by passed him for three Tests and the three previous one dayers. Sure signs of timidity. Time is long past since our selectors discarded their blinkers and looked at a wider horizon to display more expertise in their jobs.

If for nothing else, at least to confuse the Englishmen, they should have played Bandara, if only for the fact that he was sporting Lasith Malinga’s surname as his first name which would surely have confused the Englishmen no end, for they would not have been able to differentiate the pacy from the leggie!! (Not to be taken seriously of course). Bandara joined Gloucester in the latter part of last season to replace Upul Chandana and created quite an impression to bamboozle around forty victims in only seven matches. No, that was not good enough, so probably the search will continue.

Here was a golden opportunity, something akin to being offered a free kick at goal, in World Cup parlance, and a wasted opportunity with the kick going astray. The very nature of a spinner’s trade demands a high degree of accuracy, control and experience all of which could only be got by playing, playing and still more playing. When an opportunity does present itself it should be grasped with both hands for the above commodities cannot be purchased by kicking one’s heels in the cool of a dressing room.

Drowned by the euphoria of our success we must not lose sight of reality. I am not trying to denigrate our performance but it will do us no harm to have the following fact deeply rooted in our systems. Out of last year’s Ashes winning team, seven or eight were injured and could not be considered for selection. Except for Harmison, the captain Vaughan, Flintoff, Pietersen, Collingwood, Jones, Hoggard, Giles and Anderson were not consistently available for much of the season which could have had a debilitating effect on many a team. We were actually pitted against the second or third best. This no doubt is no fault of ours for we can only play as well or as badly as the opposition allows. Yet, it is an undeniable fact and we would do well not to sweep it under the carpet, but move forward with this well in focus.

Jayawerdene, who was bugged by a technical defect in the corridor just outside the off stump, and not spotted or rectified earlier, appears to have overcome this problem and had a successful outing showing more consistency which greatly helped our cause. Then Vaas, whom I always considered a better batsman than he was given credit for (he should have been made to play the role of a Davidson long long ago), finally discovered his batting potential to give us much needed support in the lower half of the order. But I am afraid his usual bowling reliability seems to have got tangled in his new, long and feminine hair style and could only hope he could find an early way out of this dilemma.

The most satisfying happening of the tour was the manifesting and maturing of the obvious talent inherent in the youngster, Upul Tharanga. Here is a real champion and he only needs a little more experience and ‘good’ guidance to be a top runner in the years ahead. We wish him well. Sangakkara also helped with good displays behind the stumps but could have contributed more in front of them by turning those forties and fifties into more substantial totals.

By the end of the tour the team had gelled into a confident, fighting unit and we fervently hope that they would carry forward this upward surge into the World Cup next year, conscious of meeting much stiffer opposition.