Some cricket connoisseurs still feel that Roy Dias was at the wrong place at the wrong time. They feel – had that most elegant batsman played his initial cricket in a Test playing country he would have found a place in their national side without any hassle.
Sri Lanka being Sri Lanka, the country lost his talent when he was at his prime, but, gentle master and the first professional Lankan cricket coach is back on the prowl and is looking for avenues to share his coaching talents that he has bestowed upon the Nepalese cricketers for the past nine years.
Roy has converted the mountainous land-locked Kingdom’s cricket from a non-entity to a high-ranked teenage cricketing force in the ICC map. Under his tutelage Nepal has beaten countries like South Africa and New Zealand and also has won the Plate Championship of the ICC under 19 Cricket World Cup -- a huge achievement for a country that is a non-regular in the cricketing map.
Roy Dias |
“Well I have been away from the Lankan scene for the past nine years and it is a very long time in the cricketing parlance. Nepal had reached its simmering heights and now it is up to them to send their cricketers across the boarder to play in India or play more international matches, if not the thirty odd cricketers will play each other and stay static in their ploys and skills.”
Dias the Lankan No 3 bat, who was rated as one of the best in the world even when Lankan international cricket was at its infancy, is a person who can read the game as well as the do’s and the don’ts in a player almost instantaneously, which is a main ingredient in coaching.
His meeting with the Musings went in length, but like the proverbial ‘bug’ the conversation turned towards the Lankan charge for the next World Cup on our own soil five months hence.
Dias began by saying that when the Lankans won the World Cup in 1996 he was a part of the band wagon by being in the selection committee under Duleep Mendis and then two years later becoming the first Lankan Professional Cricket Coach. He said: “I am proud to say that I was the first Sri Lankan to be given the job as a professional coach in 1998. The side was captained by Arjuna Ranatunga.
I was the coach when Muralitharan was called for the second time by Australian umpire Ross Emerson and Arjuna did a great job of fighting for Murali and winning the case.
From there, we went to England and won the Emirates Cup. England had given us only one Test and that was at the Oval and the Test was history with Sanath getting a double century, Aravinda a one hundred and fifty while Muralitharan played havoc with the English batsmen by grabbing 16 wickets.
I still can remember at the end of the first day reporters asked me as to why we had sent England into bat after winning the toss. They were three hundred odd for three at that time. I replied saying that it was a five-day game and the team management had already decided on that ploy.
Then, as planned, the ploy worked for us. Murali who worked hard on the first inning to bag seven wickets had the time to recuperate and then run through the English batsmen once again to end-up with a match haul of 16 wickets and a ten wicket win for Sri Lanka.
I feel if we had batted and then got England to bat and even got them to follow on it would have been too much for Murali. Then I was there for the 1999 World Cup which we fared very badly and then I was replaced by Dav Whatmore who came for his second tenure”
Then we got closer home. Dias gave his view on the ongoing preparations for the World Cup. He feels after the World Cup winning combination of 1996, this is the strongest side that Sri Lanka has produced in its cricket evolution.
“The Lankan cricketers are doing great at the moment. The fact proves when you take they are at number three on both sides of the scale.
They can do so because they have got the necessary exposure. Unlike in our time, the present Lankan cricketers are playing almost twelve Test matches a year and more ODIs during the same period.”
However, the past great feels that the ‘96 combination had Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana opening the inning followed by Asanka, Aravinda, Arjuna, Mahanama and Hashan Tillekeratne, a batting line-up that had winners embedded from one to seven. But, the present line-up was a bit too lean in the middle for comfort.
“There is a lot of accent put on the skills of Mahela Jayawardena and skipper Kumar Sangakkara. I feel that Sangakkara is a very good captain just taking into account the fact that he is the captain, No 3 batsman and also wicket-keeper of the side. I feel that it is too much for Kumar. In a triangular or another engagement it would be okay. But, the World Cup is the World Cup and it exerts automatic pressure. At the same time Mahela Jayawardena has shown inclination that he likes to bat up in the order opening the innings.
If that is going to be the case I feel that a batsman in the calibre of Thilan Samaraweera should bat at number three. When you take our top order, Mahela, Kumar, Dilshan, Chamara Silva and Chamara Kapugedera -- all are stroke makers. We need a plodder who can rotate the batting in their midst. That is the job that Gurusinha and Arjuna did in the ’96 batting order. While Sanath, Kalu, Aravinda and Mahanama played their strokes, Gurusinha, Arjuna and Tillekeratne rotated the batting.
That was the success in that batting line-up. We have another five months and two tours against Australia and the West Indies, by that time we should be able to pen down the final batting order.”In bowling also, Dias feels that Sri Lanka must have the services of an experienced bowler in the calibre of Chaminda Vaas to pair off with the ever-improving Lasith Malinga. Dias feels still Sri Lanka is to develop a bowler who could use the new ball the way Vaas does. “I read that Vaas has been doing well in the county circuit. This means he is still in good nick, so why not make the maximum out of him at the World Cup, which is something special?”
Dias feels that with the two spinners in either Suraj Randiv or veteran Muttiah Muralitharan along with the pace combination of Malinga, Vaas and Nuwan Kulasekera, Sri Lanka should do well in the World Cup as they have the optional bowling talents of Angelo Mathews and T.M. Dilshan. |
E-mail
