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Prasad’s eccentrics will be missed not his service

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There is a bus stop in Nagoda, just before Kandana junction on Negombo road. It’s called ‘No ball Handiya’. Not because of Dilhara Fernando but as even Dhammika Prasad, who represented Sri Lanka in 25 Test matches, hails from the same vicinity. Both fast bowlers attended the same school – De Mazenod. They had a fine coach – Vernon Senanayake, even he couldn’t rectify their overstepping problems.

Prasad was quite a handful with the new ball as he could generate genuine pace. Once in Galle he dismissed Chris Gayle and celebrated it by lying down on the pitch with outstretched arms. The embarrassment was just around the corner. Umpire Richard Kettleborough approached him to inform that it was a no ball. Gayle would go onto score a career best 333 with 34 fours and nine monstrous sixes with most of them landing on the Galle bus halt!

Not sure whether any other Sri Lankan fast bowler has had an impressive debut as Dhammika Prasad. It was against India at P. Sara Oval. He took three wickets in the first innings. Guess the names? Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Virender Sehwag.

There was lot of bad blood during Sri Lanka’s tour of England in 2014. The England and Wales Cricket Board had reduced Sri Lanka’s Test matches to two and instead hosted India for five Tests. Sri Lanka’s Head Coach Paul Farbrace had defected to England ranks just two weeks prior to the tour. Then, there was the Mankading of Jos Buttler, ordered by of all people Marvan Atapattu, one of the nicest guys to play the game of cricket.

The first Test at Lord’s was a thrilling draw. Kumar Sangakkara playing his last Test at The Home of Cricket scored a hundred. Sri Lanka’s last pair saw off some tensed moments thanks to the DRS.

The tourists fought tooth and nail in the second Test at Headingley. After conceding a lead of over 100 runs in the first innings, they fared better in the second innings. Sri Lanka were 150 runs ahead with four wickets in hand and needed 100 or so more to set England a decent target. Captain Angelo Mathews was their biggest hope. When Dhammika Prasad joined him, the instructions were clear. Mathews was going to do the scoring, Prasad had to block. But our man had a brain fade. The first ball he faced, Prasad slashed Liam Plunkett and was caught at third man. Mathews was furious and threw his bat away.

As Prasad was nearing the dressing room, team manager late Michael De Zoysa told all his players and support staff to give the batsman, who had just collected a pair, the cold shoulder. Not a single person in the dressing room spoke to Prasad that afternoon.

This angered Prasad. What followed was an aggressive spell of fast bowling. Prasad finished with career best figures of five for 50. More importantly, Sri Lanka went onto win their first ever Test series in England.

By 2015, Prasad had emerged as Sri Lanka’s leading fast bowler. That year he finished as one of the top ten wicket takers in the world in Test match cricket. We weren’t short of Prasad’s eccentrics. He picked up a fight with India’s Ishant Sharma at SSC. Prasad peppered Ishant with a barrage of short pitched bowling and exchanged words. Team mate Dinesh Chandimal came to Prasad’s aid and even brushed shoulders with the lanky Indian fast bowler. All three were charged by the Match Referee Andy Pycroft.

Later that day, as Pycroft entered Taj Samudra he saw a sight that warmed his heart. Prasad and Ishant were having coffee at the lobby. The Match Referee treated Prasad with kid’s gloves but banned Chandimal for one match. Chandimal did not speak with Prasad for several weeks.

We never saw Prasad’s full potential. He was very unlucky with injuries; like ahead of the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2015. On the eve of the curtain-raiser in Christchurch, Prasad hurt his hand attempting a return catch and was sent home. He played little cricket from thereon.

Despite all eccentrics, Prasad’s team mates vouch that the bloke has a heart of gold. Successive Sri Lankan captains have valued his service for he makes their jobs so easy.

Most cricketers can be found in Colombo-7s posh clubs socializing with friends when they have day-offs. To trace Prasad you have to go to the local bar. He will either be found spending time with his villagers at Sensasia in Peralanda or CASA in Ragama. Once established, most players prefer to move to Colombo. Prasad has remained in his village – Ragama, not too far away from No Ball Junction.

Prasad feels the pain of his fellow Sri Lankans. As the country went into a lock-down following the outbreak of the pandemic last year, Prasad was busy collecting dry rations and distributing them among daily wage earners. Jesus fed 5000 people in Capernaum. Prasad fed 2000 families in Gampaha, week after week. He will announce his retirement from cricket today. He will be missed.



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Why the delay? Sri Lanka puzzled over timing of Kuhnemann’s action report

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Matthew Kuhnemann's action was reported to be suspect. [Cricbuzz]

Multiple senior Sri Lankan players had raised concerns over Matthew Kuhnemann’s bowling action after the first Test, Cricbuzz has learnt, with many in the team now left puzzled over why the match officials waited until the end of the series to report the Australian left-arm spinner. According to sources within the team, a couple of them in particular had indicated having found something “not quite right” about the way Kuhnemann was finishing his action while he starred in the first Test win with nine wickets in Galle.

This comes in the wake of the 28-year-old’s action being officially reported by the ICC with its legality now under scrutiny. Kuhnemann, who finished on top of the wicket-takers’ list with 16 wickets at 17.18, will now have to undergo independent testing within the next two weeks to be cleared to bowl again in international cricket.

However, some of the Sri Lankan batters seem to have had an issue with it as early as the latter part of the opening Test. With one of them even having approached Sri Lankan spin bowling coach Piyal Wijetunge to watch replays and analyse Kuhnemann’s action. It’s learnt that Wijetunge couldn’t find anything untoward with it and put the batter’s doubts down to the unique ‘wrist action’ used by the Aussie finger spinner.

The Sri Lankan batter in question and some of his colleagues though weren’t convinced by the spin bowling coach’s explanation and continued to raise eyebrows over some of Kuhnemann’s deliveries as the series progressed.

“They were finding it difficult to leave the crease against him, because they felt like he could adjust and make changes very late, which they found unusual. It’s not like they were questioning his action after every delivery but there were some balls which they were concerned with,” the source told Cricbuzz.

For the record, a number of Sri Lankan batters did succumb to Kuhnemann while trying to play him from their crease.

Kuhnemann is no stranger to Sri Lanka having made his ODI debut here in 2022, and then having gone on to make an impression in his maiden Test series in India the following year. And this is the first time during his eight-year professional cricket career that his action has been officially questioned. A source did admit that the Sri Lankans had not found anything out of place when they were studying Kuhnemann’s bowling videos as part of their preparation for the Test series. That it was only after they saw him bowl during the first Test in Galle that alarms were raised.

“Our focus was more on Nathan Lyon and the damage that he could cause in Galle. But we did watch a lot of Kuhnemann’s videos from his past performances, and nothing really caught our eye. There were a few deliveries through the series though that didn’t quite feel right,” revealed one of the batters.

“What we don’t understand is why the match officials, who were the same for both Tests, waited until the series was over before reporting his action,” he added.

None of this of course has any bearing on how Australia deal with the situation, with Kuhnemann’s immediate future as a bowler in international cricketer dependent on the outcome of the testing conducted by the human-movement specialist in the next two weeks.

Interestingly, the Sri Lankan spin coach’s assessment, like learnt, seemed to be along the lines of how former ace Indian spinner R Ashwin had broken down Kuhnemann’s action a couple of years ago on his YouTube show.

Ashwin had highlighted the uniqueness of the left-armer’s wrist in its loading position and why it could create an optical illusion of there being an elaborate “elbow extension”, which according to the laws of the game cannot be over 15 degrees.

“The way his wrist breaks, it will look at times like an elbow extension. But there’s nothing like that in his action. It’s more the wrist involvement,” Ashwin had said.

Cricket Australia have thrown their support behind the Queenslander, who now plies his trade in Tasmania, and will work through the process, which will involve Kuhnemann bowling at similar speeds and with similar revolutions on the ball as he would have during the second Test. The results will then show if there is an elbow extension beyond the legal 15 degrees in order to deem whether his action is legal or not in its current form.

It’s learnt that Sri Lankan cricket will wait until the results are made public before making any further statements about the issue regarding Kuhnemann’s bowling action.

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Grant Fisher smashes world indoor 5000m record in Boston

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Less than a week after he took apart the world indoor 3000m record in New York, USA’s Grant Fisher added another world indoor record* to his tally, this time over 5000m at the BU David Hemery Valentine International in Boston on Friday (14).

The double Olympic bronze medallist dropped Jimmy Gressier just after the half way point and continued to extend his lead throughout the second half. After passing 3000m in 7:39.16 – a comfortable 16 seconds outside the world indoor record of 7:22.91 he clocked last Saturday – Fisher continued to churn out sub-31-second laps.

After covering the final 400m in 59.36 seconds, Fisher charged through the line in 12:44.09, a five-second improvement on the previous world indoor record of 12:49.60 set by Kenenisa Bekele in 2004.

Gressier held on for second place in 12:54.92, a European indoor record and outright French record.

[*Subject to the usual ratification procedure]

[World Athletics]

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Ostapenko hands Swiatek heavy loss to reach Qatar final

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Iga Swiatek hit just eight winners compared to 31 by Jelena Ostapenko [BBC]

Iga Swiatek suffered her worst defeat in two years as Jelena Ostapenko breezed past the world number two in straight sets to reach the Qatar Open final.

Ostapenko needed just and hour and eight minutes to wrap up a 6-3 6-1 victory over the five-time Grand Slam champion in Doha.

The last time Swiatek was on the wrong end of such a one-sided match was a 6-2 6-2 loss to Elena Rybakina at Indian Wells in March 2023.

The 23-year-old Pole was on a 15-match winning streak at the Qatar Open and chasing a fourth successive title.

Ostapenko, ranked 37th in the world, has now won all five of her meetings with Swiatek.

“I feel like this court has a special energy,” said the Latvian, 27.

“I was pretty confident that I would beat her because we’ve played a lot of matches and I kind of know how to play against her.

“I’m really happy with the way I’m handling my emotions this week. I’m just so happy to be in the final.”

Ostapenko will play Amanda Anisimova in today’s final after the American beat Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-3 6-3.

[BBC Sports]

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