Sports
Coach Arthur weeps for ‘Prodigal sons’
by Rex Clementine
You do feel for Sri Lanka’s Head Coach Mickey Arthur. When the selectors called him up and discussed the way forward for the nation’s white ball teams banking on several young players, he agreed to rebuild the team with the likes of Niroshan Dickwella, Kusal Mendis and Danushka Gunathilaka forming the nucleus of the side. However, two months later, all three players were served with lengthy suspensions after they breached the bio-secure bubble during Sri Lanka’s tour of England early this year.
Left with a depleted side, Arthur spoke of the disappointment of having to play without three players on whom Sri Lanka Cricket had invested heavily over the last five years.
“That was a massive blow for us. You’re talking about three of your top-five batters in the white-ball format there. That was a bitter pill to swallow for sure. You suddenly got back to square one in terms of your planning again,” Arthur told journalists.
However, Arthur said that the positive for him was that some young players were able to grab their opportunities while some seniors were able to make comebacks.
“It was really disappointing, but it led us to find the likes of Charith Asalanka, who has come on beautifully. Then there is Kamindu Mendis, who’s playing beautifully. Pathum Nissanka probably got another opportunity. It’s allowed Dinesh Chandimal to come back into the mix. Bhanuka Rajapaksa to come back into the mix. So out of that adversity it’s allowed opportunities to other players,” Arthur noted.
While Sri Lanka’s bowling has fared well since the adoption of youth policy, it is the batting that has been a letdown and the absence of the suspended trio has been felt.
“I think if our batting clicks it’ll give us a really good chance because our bowling attack is very good and our fielding standards have improved dramatically. That is an area we’ve worked extremely hard on over the past nine days. We’ve had three practice games, we’ve had some skill sessions to prepare players to sweep, we identified where and how we want our players to play. We’ve almost scripted a game,” Arthur explained.
“It’s easy to stand and try and hit boundaries, but having the ability to deflect a ball into a gap off a good ball is a real art. That’s the real art of batsmanship. So, we’ve done a lot of drills during this phase, and we’ve harped on that. That’s something I’ve been working on for the last nine months with our group,” Arthur added.
Sri Lanka are currently in Oman and will play two T20 Internationals on Thursday and Saturday before flying to Abu Dhabi to begin preparations for the World Cup. They will have two warm-up games against Bangladesh and Papua New Guinea before the World Cup qualifier begins. Sri Lanka are grouped alongside Netherlands, Namibia and Ireland and need to win two games to proceed to the business end of the competition.
Sri Lanka won the T20 World Cup in 2014 in Dhaka and were runners-up in 2009 and 2012 in London and Colombo respectively.
New Zealand 104 for 4 in 11.4 overs (Tim Robinson 23, Bevon Jacobs 62*, Dean Foxcroft 15*; Mahedi Hassan 1-2, Shoriful Islam 3-19) beat Bangladesh 102 in 14.2 overs (Saif Hassan 16, Litton Ds 26. Towhid Hridoy 33; Nathan Smith 2-14, Ben Sears 2-12. Jayden Lennox 1-28, Josh Clarkson 3-09, ) by six wickets (DLS method)
Bevon Jacobs’ cracking unbeaten 62 took New Zealand to a six-wicket win against Bangladesh in the third T20I. The win in the rain-affected match in Dhaka ensured the three-match series was levelled 1-1 after the second game was rained out.
On Saturday, rain interrupted the Bangladesh innings for nearly two hours after it came down hard at 2.37pm local time. Play resumed at 4.30pm, and the match was reduced to 15 overs per side.
New Zealand, however, bowled Bangladesh out for 102 in the 15th over, with Josh Clarkson taking 3 for 9. Later, it was Jacobs who struck 62 off 31 balls, including five fours and three sixes, to get them home with 20 balls to spare.
Shoriful Islam gave Bangladesh a stunning start in their defense. He bowled a teasing outswinger with his second ball, that Katene Clarke couldn’t help but chase, thus edging to wicketkeeper Litton Das for 1. Shoriful rounded up the first over with Dane Cleaver’s wicket, also caught behind – this time off the inside edge.
Tim Robinson looked promising at the other end, crashing Ripon Mondol for a sweetly timed four and a brutally struck six over point, but he fell trying to slog Shoriful in the fourth over. Mahedi Hasan got into the act too, when he bowled captain Nick Kelly for one.
Jacobs went after Shoriful in his last over, striking him for two fours through midwicket, before Dean Foxcroft swung him down the ground for a third boundary. Jacobs struck Rishad Hossain through midwicket soon after, before Mondol was sent high over mid-off for a six.
Jacobs reached his fifty with a six off Rishad’s next over. Parvez Hossain Emon could have taken a catch at long-on, but instead punched it over for the maximum. Jacobs then slammed a straight boundary, before slog-sweeping Rishad for a six over midwicket to complete the chase with a sequence of 6, 4, 6.
Before the rain, Nathan Smith gave New Zealand a solid start with two wickets off consecutive deliveries in the fifth over. Smith burst through Tanzid Hasan with a delivery that held its line as Tanzid went for a heave across the line. Next ball, Parvez Hossain’s upper cut was poorly timed, as it lobbed towards Ish Sodhi at short third.
Before the double strike, left-arm spinner Jayden Lennox became the third New Zealander to take a wicket with his first ball in T20Is. On debut, Lennox outfoxed Saif Hassan into giving a simple catch to Robinson at cover. Before Lennox did on Saturday, Lockie Ferguson and Cole McConchie had taken wickets with their first ball on debut.
When play resumed after a lengthy rain break, Clarkson removed Litton, who was caught at the deep-cover boundary after he made 26 off 17 balls. Towhid Hridoy survived a run-out chance in the next over when wicketkeeper Cleaver dislodged the stumps before the throw came in from the point fielder, with Hridoy stranded outside the crease.
Bangladesh’s luck, however, ran out soon, when Sodhi removed Shamim Hossain in the 12th over. Clarkson dismissed Hridoy and Mohammad Saifuddin off consecutive balls in the next over. Robinson took a great low catch, about which he was unsure of initially; he eventually finished with three catches in the innings,the most by a New Zealand outfielder in Bangladesh.
Rishad was run out trying to complete a second, before Ben Sears, fresh off the plane from the PSL, bowled Shoriful and Mondol early in the last over.
Sri Lanka completed a clean sweep of Bangladesh after winning the third T20I by three runs. In the rain-affected match in Sylhet, Chamari Athapaththu once again led the visitors with an all-round show. After her 41 runs from the bat helped Sri Lanka to 87 in nine overs, she bagged 2 for 15 with the ball when defending the total.
Sent in to bat first after a two-and-a-half hour delay, Sri Lanka sped off to 40 runs in the shortened powerplay of three overs. Offspinner Sultana Khatun removed Imesha Dulani in the fourth over after she made 19 off 10 balls with four boundaries.
Athapaththu played a lone hand henceforth while wickets fell at the other end. She struck five fours and a six, some of them blistering through the in field, and a couple of flicks, as she held the Sri Lanka innings on her own.
Harshitha Samarawickrama fell to Sanjida Akter in the fifth over, before Sultana removed Hansima Karunaratne and Nilakshika Silva in the sixth. Kavisha Dilhari struck two fours and a six in her seven-ball 15 which bolstered Sri Lanka towards the end of their innings.
In the chase, Athapaththu removed Dilara Akter in the second over before Juairiya Ferdous and Sobhana Mostary added 30 runs for the second wicket. Captain Nigar Sultana couldn’t get a move on, as she made 13 off nine balls, and Bangladesh couldn’t get to the target in the end. They needed 14 runs off the last over, with Sultana only getting a single boundary off Athapaththu.
Brief scores:
Sri Lanka Women 87 for 6 in 9 overs (Chamari Athapaththu 41, Imesha Dulani 19, Kavisha Dilhari 15; Sultana Khatun 3-08, Sanjida Akter Meghia 1-16) beat Bangladesh Women 84 for 6 in 9 overs (Juairia Ferdous 15, Sobhana Mostary 21, Nigar Sultana 13; Chamari Athapaththu 2-15, Sugandika Kumari 2-22, Nimasha Meepagr 1-16, Mithali Ayodhya 1-13 ) by three runs
[Cricinfo]
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