Through the looking glass

By S.R.Pathiravithana

--The Sunday times

One good ball a match? Does that mean you merit a place in a Test team?

Back to square one. Today starts the second Test in a different surface than the one at Asgiriya, but, there are a lot of factors that must be ascertained for the good of the game in Sri Lanka.

Yes, Sri Lanka won a memorable Test match which almost went to the wire, but finally by a margin of eighty eight runs. But, how they achieved it is the most intriguing aspect of it.

We here in this column think that it was the game that really brought out the best in skipper Mahela Jayawardena and showed the cricketing world he is a captain who reads the run of play and then makes the decisions. On the fourth day when Sri Lanka had got their lead close to a three hundred runs with Sangakkara back in the pavilion many a pundit was questioning the prudence of delaying the declaration. Many were under the impression that the lead at that time was sufficient and almost a session of play remaining and with Murali on a fifth day wicket in the sub-continent it would be a slap-bang victory for Sri Lanka. At one time the TV camera projected on Mahela giving the hold on mark with his palm upright signalling to proceed with the status quo.

However only later on that I learned that he had really fathomed the situation. It was a Test match that Sri Lanka had managed to salvage from almost a hopeless situation. Then came the Murali affair, the Sanath retirement along with the Sangakkara contribution which enabled him to contemplate.

It was a wicket that Sri Lanka was batting on the third innings with a score of four hundred runs and going back in the game bowlers on both sides at some stage or the other had suffered heavily, bowling on that unresponsive slow wicket especially while operating with the older ball. This was a game that he could not afford to lose, so purposely he delayed the declaration. He finally made the declaration giving the visitors a fighting chance of making it to a win if they so desired.

Then proving the pundits correct English wickets kept on falling like nine pins until Bell tolled for England along with Bopara and Prior. The ball was old the wicket was unresponsive and the English batting was coasting on now with a hint of an English win in the air.

Mahela’s answer was to quicken the pace of the overs through Muralitharan and Jaysuriya until the new ball was due to wrest the initiative once again. I feel it was a superb piece of captaincy by a man who had read the game better than the others.

However the alarming factor in this whole episode was how much Mahela had to depend upon his senior citizens to deliver the goods. The Murali factor goes without saying. But, Vaas was put on the field by the M&J Corporation with the noose hanging over his head. Sanath already had been shot in the back and he only had to fall flat at the end of the match.

In the spinning department still it is Muralitharan who is the match winning bowler without a proper replacement in sight as now the Lankan team management prefers to go in with a three-one combination. That is because they had Sanath Jayasuriya if the need arose, but, from this point onwards it is nice to fathom who it’s going to be! However by the time you read this may be the answer is on the green in flesh and blood.

Ironically besides Vandort, no other young member of the playing eleven came up with a compelling performance. Vandort batted resolutely and gave all the support to Jayasuriya to cause upset with the initial onslaught on the English attack that had them dumb stuck for the rest of the innings. However the same can not be said about Chamara Silva who got in and out when he had the chance to prove his worth. It is sad to note that most of the younger entrants show brilliance at the very early stages and once in with a semi-permanent place in the side they begin to relax. The first few innings may contain a few centuries and then the next in line may be a long way off. That is exactly what happened to young Upul Tharanga. He was lucky that Sanath was ready to step down when he showed that he had learned from his mistakes with a century against the visitors in their tour opener. Under a different scenario Tharanga may have had a long and futile wait until Vandort or Jayasuriya began to fail.

Does one good ball in a match warrant a place in a Test team? That is a question we pose to M&J Corporation. Lasith Malinga may be having a very deceptive slingy action and also may be very fast. But, if he is going to be erratic like in his present form, he may feel cozier on the reserves bench rather than sweating it out in the middle. He is a bowler who must be
disciplined.

The wasted space in the eleven is occupied by mediocre Jehan Mubarak. He has been given the opportunities that no other cricketer has been afforded in the recent past. Yet he has failed to come up with a noteworthy contribution that would go down the memory lane of a cricket follower.

Some say they genuinely feel that he would be better off as an academic than an international cricketer because he is occupying a berth that should go to a more deserving player.