The solid bloc is on the way
No respite…At work at 200 per cent like in the chain gang – Pic Courtesy Sri Lanka cricket.
Come Tuesday Lankans coming in for the first of their Tests in the three match series against Australia at Pallekelle are in no position to sit back and savour the home advantage as they perennially used to. According to Sri Lanka team manager Charith Senanayake right now they are earnestly engaged in an arduous task of putting Sri Lanka cricket back in shape. Senanayake who batted for Sri Lanka at number three on several occasions said “Right at the moment we are working harder than any other cricket playing nation in the world. During our tour of England we saw the home team doing only the topping up work because the team had already worked their programme through.
We did not have that luxury. Even now we are engaged in doing our one-on-ones, fielding sessions and other allied work to get us in proper shape. If the others are doing 100 per cent we are concentrating on doing two hundred per cent. In the process there may be breakdowns, but, it is part of the process. “We have learned that within the past six months the national team has sifted through fifty four players. When our management team led by Graham Ford took over the task of rebuilding the team we started on a very shallow foundation. Now we are in the process of identifying all the loose ends and solidifying them.”
Senanayake said for instance Sri Lanka cricket management found that there is a huge gap between our domestic cricket and the international call. He said this is one anomaly that we have to take serious note of. He said “If anyone thought with the present structure it expected to beat the England team which is high riding at the moment, they are sadly mistaken. Besides in the recent past our work ethics also have been below par and the direct result is that we experienced a string of injuries. “This is a gigantic task and we are up to the challenge. Right at the moment what we have done is to put up the foundation and begin to build the wall, but we are far from completing the building.
Now we are in the process of taking on the Australians. This is going to be another huge challenge, but at the same time we are aware that we have to work with the talent in hand and it would take us sometime more to settle down as a complete unit. Yet, at the same time we feel that we are just one win away from that proposition. Just one good win could turn things around”. He also added that in spite of all the hard yards that we are putting to shape our cricket and putting them back in its right perspective, there is a section of who want things to go wrong. “They are waiting for the Lankans to fail. This is a very sad situation. After all we are all looking at the bigger picture of making our cricket better”.
Meanwhile the national selection panel led by Jayasuriya and company has picked a squad with five uncapped players in the final list of fourteen. Yet Australia’s Lehman doctrine has spelled that the Australians are willing to fight spin with spin and win the battle of wits. The Pallekelle wicket is not famous for its run making besides the run against the mill win by Pakistan, in the last Test match which was played at this venue where the visitors scored 382 for 3 off an attack that comprised Dhammika Prasad, Suranga Lakmal, P.H.T. Kaushal and Jehan Mubarak. Besides that the average score at this venue has been in region of 280+.
As far as the Australians are concerned this is the tour in which they discovered off spinner Nathan Lyon and since then he has been a regular feature in their armoury. In the last Test match that the Australians were forced to settle for a watery draw after the Lankans crashed to 174 all-out in the first inning and the Australians scored 411 for 7 with Shaun Marsh (141) and Mr. Cricket (Michael Hussey) 142 scored big hundreds. Yet, this time around the Australians are paying special emphasis in winning the series. So they are preparing themselves for the crumbling wickets with the slow and low bounce. Besides they also have drafted in thirty-one year-old Steve O’Keefe who already has proved that he is ready to take up the Lankan challenge with his ten wicket haul, which was studded with a fine half century to seal an innings win within three days, in their three day warm-up.
The squads:
Sri Lanka: Lakshan Sandakan, Angelo Mathews (Captain), Dinesh Chandimal (Vice captain), Dimuth Karunaratne, Kaushal Silva, Kusal Perera, Kusal Mendis, Dhananjaya de Silva, Roshen Silva, Nuwan Pradeep, Vishwa Fernando, Asitha Fernando, Rangana Herath, Dilruwan Perera, Suranga Lakmal.
Australia: Steven Smith (Captain), David Warner, Jackson Bird, Joe Burns, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Josh Hazlewood, Moises Henriques, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Peter Nevill, Steve O’Keefe, Mitchell Starc, Adam Voges