Playing spin; Sri Lanka’s Achilles’ heel

by Rex Clementine

Time was when the poverty-ridden areas of the city were called as ‘Korea’.  Today, Sri Lankans are heading to South Korea in numbers seeking employment. Then take Bangladesh for example. In the South Asian region, they were one of the poorest countries. They have come a long way and today are wealthy enough to provide Sri Lanka a loan. And they have a cricket team that is giving the Sri Lankans a real hiding.

The 103 run defeat that Tamim Iqbal’s side handed the Sri Lankans on Tuesday was a bitter pill to swallow. One of the irritating things in losing to Bangladesh is that they go bonkers with their celebrations.  Not anymore. Nowadays it seems that they are so confident of beating Sri Lanka and there was not much of a celebration.

Bangladesh are in a different league now. They are heading the points table of the ICC World Cup Super League having replaced World Champions England. We Sri Lankans are on the brink of playing the World Cup qualifiers; our slide in the last five years has been so rapid. The Sri Lankans need to win 12 of the 18 games left in the qualifying period to earn automatic qualification. With our opponents down the line expected to be England, India and South Africa, there’s little hope of that happening.

The scary part is that there is even the possibility of Sri Lanka not qualifying for the 2023 World Cup.

Some have argued that Sri Lanka should have been at full strength as Bangladesh were one of the easier opponents. Well, spin has been this young team’s Achilles’ heel. The seniors weren’t covering themselves in glory when England were in town with little heard Dom Bess, claiming a five wicket haul on Test debut. Arjuna Ranatunga said that with two days of training Aravinda de Silva at the age of 55 could hit the off-spinner out of the park. So you doubt whether the seniors would have made a big difference.

One positive has been the fielding and energy on the field. But that will be of little use if the team is losing in this fashion without any fight.

The youth policy was good but some aspects of it are highly flawed.  Kusal Janith Perera is one of the nicest guys you will come across in cricket. But not sure whether he is a leader. The selectors have argued that he is one of the few guys who can hold onto his place. But that is very defensive thinking. England would have never won the Ashes in 1981 had they followed similar strategy. Ian Botham was the golden boy of British sport in the 1980s. England’s selectors were bold and ready to sack Botham which forced the all-rounder to quit paving the way for Mike Brearley, an average First Class cricketer to be appointed captain. The rest as they say is history.

For a selection committee that was bold enough to drop as many as six seniors to stick to KJP as leader is like Maithripala Sirisena declaring war on drugs and then appointing Pujith Jayasundara as IGP.

There was in fact contradiction from the selectors. At one point they say that the captain has to be a permanent fixture in the side and then they appoint a deputy who is making a comeback to the side having picked up four ducks in a row.

The selectors, however, need to be given all the backing for they took some unpopular decisions at a time when it was much needed. Not many teams would travel to Bangladesh these days to play ODI cricket and will come home with their heads held high.

There are four Bangladeshis who have played 200 ODIs. Kusal Janith Perera is Sri Lanka’s most experienced but he has played barely 100 games.

Playing spin has been a major issue for the Sri Lankan batters and questions will be asked on the contributions that Batting Coach Grant Flower has been making. There’s been spotlight on Flower for some time now. In Sri Lanka, anyway, after a series defeat you need a scapegoat and all blame seem to be going Flower’s way these days. Poor guy!

Too many Sri Lankan batsmen seem to be attempting to clear the boundary and are dismissed as was evident by the second ODI. That’s the easy way out.  You need to have the discipline to grind it out, rotate the strike and then find the boundary when the opportunity is presented. Mushfiqur Rahim has been so good to watch in that regard.

Inability to play spin is so strange because Sri Lankans are brought up on turning tracks. Maybe, the team composition is flawed. Niroshan Dickwella is your best player of spin and he should have played. He will now on Friday in the final ODI but that is like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.  

 One thing that is clearly can be seen is that batting cracks under pressure and the reason for that is that in your domestic cricket players are not exposed to tougher challenges. The gap, as we keep saying, in domestic cricket and international cricket is too big.