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Sports

RADICALLY WRONG!!!
By S.R. Pathiravithana
“India was made to wait but when victory came, halfway between lunch and tea and by a margin of 188 runs, it was as sweet and well-deserved. And the defeat of Sri Lanka at Kotla today was a measure not just of talent and ability but of mental strength and that treasured commodity in all contests, ‘‘bouncebackability’’. This is how the Indian Newspaper the Indian Express went on to describe their win in the second Test at Kotla.

It was only a week ago that India crashed to a demeaning 167 runs in their first innings in a rain curtailed game thus making their lowest score against Sri Lanka. Then in the first innings of this game they crashed from 245 for 3 overnight to 290 all out. Yet, they had the mental toughness to re-group and come back and beat Sri Lanka before the fifth day ended.

Then, is there something radically wrong with our cricket? If you take a vote count on this in today’s context there may be one hundred per cent hands going up with the answer “yes”. Why because Sri Lanka has just surrendered to India in their second Test sans much of a fight confirming that their superiority in the one-day internationals was no fluke or a flash in the pan. It was also projected that the Indians came into this series with a better game plan on how to exploit their home advantage to the maximum.

Losing to India in India indeed is no shame. Most of the countries have come to consider that their teams have come of age only after beating India in an away series. Most consider the Indian conditions to be the last frontier in cricket. For Sri Lanka this was no exception. The team that left Sri Lanka in October was a team full of confidence. A series of home exploits had their ego right up on the pedestal. But, from day one over the 22km bridge in the Palk Strait the bitter pill was given to them, and this too not in very small doses. Now they have come to realize that playing in India under their home conditions is more than a test of skill and you must be conversant with the book of cricket from A to Z.

According to one commentator the wicket that the match was played on in Delhi posed no threats to the batsmen barring the ball keeping low frequently. However that was a wicket a batsman could have survived for a given period of time, only if they applied themselves to it. To make this statement true, Sri Lankan batsmen, skipper Marvan Atapattu and Mahela Jayawardena proved it by building up half innings in both their batting turns of the match. In contrast what did the Indian batsmen do? In the first innings it was V.V.S. Luxman and the Maestro Sachin Tendulkar who saw them through to a total of 290. But in the second innings Pathan, Dravid, Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Dhoni joined the party and scored half centuries making the myth of it being a bowling wicket a mere fallacy. The Indian batting order did not fail twice, but, the Sri Lankan batting did on a ‘plum’ batting wicket.

There is no doubt that the Sri Lankan batsmen are some of the entertainers par excellence in the world of cricket. When many of them are on ‘song’, there is not very much more attraction in sight in the game of cricket. But, is that little enough to win matches? If it is a ‘big yes’, then we have to search where on earth the ‘dead rat’ is.

Just look at the normal Lankan batting order! It comes as – Sanath Jayasuriya, Marvan Atapattu, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardena. Whew….what talent. Just imagine when and if they get out cheaply? “Boom” the batting in Sri Lanka is gone…the remaining are Tilan Samaraweera, T.M. Dilshan along with a visitor who makes a guest appearance once in a way like Russel Arnold, Jehan Mubarak or any other batsman who captures the fancy of the cricket selectors who deem it is worth for a certain cricketing individual to make a trip out there and see the ‘big boys’ are at work. That is for the selectors and the other instrumentalists involved who are spending their post ‘pads’ era in the lap of luxury in the name of cricket. But, for many others the Sri Lanka team is too top heavy and the middle order looks like an elephant’s stomach shot through by motar fire. There is such a gaping hole!

The bitter truth is that there has been no one who can wear the crown of thorns and build up a wall in the middle out there. Since Sri Lanka gained ‘Test’ status way back in 1982 and two decades in the aftermath Sri Lanka had a middle order man in Arjuna Ranatunge who brought in that extra bit into the middle order. By the early 1990’s Ranatunge had built himself into one of the best middle order batmen in the world. At the same time Hashan Tillekeratne too was transforming himself in to a ‘stone wall’ in the lower middle, but, in the post Arjuna era the ‘wise guys’ up there first went and dumped Tillekeratne and then again brought him back as captain only to dump him back again making him a dejected scapegoat for no fault of his own. He was a very good middle order batsman, but not a good captain! If the “know-alls” only knew that difference! Even at 38 he would have still been out there in the middle.
Sometime back when Australia was in a team building process, their most experienced batsman Allan Border used to come in the middle order and ‘build a hut’ out there at one end in the middle order when the other end was failing. Then along with the lower order Border used to bat along and at times even had reversed the fate of matches which were going against them initially, just by posting enough late order runs.

Coming back to our present predicament isn’t it high time that we took some meaningful steps to rectify the prevailing anomaly? It is a known fact that the Lankan batting order is top heavy and stalwart Sanath Jayasuriya up there is not getting any younger and his hand-eye co-ordination is also dwindling. But, his talent and experience is more than a leveller for all that he lacks now.
So much so after his semi-debacle he is now out of the side, even temporarily. Nevertheless he is a batsman in the Sri Lankan team who is too precious to be sacrificed early. Just taking his usefulness to the Sri Lankan team and the contribution that he could make in the middle of the Lankan batting order isn’t it worth even pondering to move him into the middle?

Besides this, finding the correct candidate to fill this void is more than vital and time is running out. In reality what we need there is a person who has experience, who knows what to do in any given situation, and also to be able to carry the tail along with him at least for another one hundred runs. Besides Jaysuriya who is the best candidate for this position at this given juncture? The only other candidate that comes to my mind is Russel Arnold. However if he is brought back, he should be given the assurance that he would not be used as scapegoat for the follies of the top order and also should be given a decent run so that he could get back to his own self and be mentally prepared.

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