Sports

Sri Lanka in shambles in second Test

Published

4 years ago

2022/03/14

Rex Clementine in Bangalore

India have not just got the world’s best franchise tournament, they also have a robust Test team and Sri Lanka with a bloated First Class system were no match for the hosts as they were heading for a heavy defeat in the second Test here in Bangalore inside three days.

You can pardon Sri Lanka’s players for not being fit to hold a candle to the Indians as their opponents’ skill levels are far superior. But what is unpardonable is their mindless selections and sloppy cricket.

Niroshan Dickwella and Kusal Mendis are making a comeback since being suspended and a close look would tell you that they have learned little although they have been doing time for more than six months.

On the first day’s play, Mendis walked out to the field wearing a floppy hat although it’s a tradition for players to wear their Test cap on the first session of a Test match. It’s a tradition started by one of the nation’s exemplary leaders by the

name of Marvan Atapattu and maybe we should not expect lesser mortals like Mendis to follow suit. It is a man of Mendis’ stature the current selection committee appointed as vice-captain in May last year giving us a clear indication that here’s a future Test captain. Just in case that doom’s day dawns, Sri Lanka’s team meetings will be happening at the Cheers Pub. To their credit, the rest of the Sri Lankan players were wearing their Test caps.

Sri Lanka have done some bizarre things this tour and they opened batting with Mendis on day one and that experiment lasted less than three overs. Then there’s Niroshan Dickwella, his partner in crime.

Dickwella’s reviewing has been horrendous for many years but Sri Lankan captains continue to depend on him. His counterpart Rishab Pant has been excellent giving skipper Rohit Sharma sound advice. In India’s first innings, Dickwella prompted his captain to review leg before wicket decisions on three occasions and on all three occasions it emerged that the batsmen had nicked the ball. The only advice you should be getting from Dickwella is which restaurants in Colombo have free corkage.

India’s lower middle order batsmen have cleverly farmed the strike from the tail-enders and helped the team score significant totals. Dickwella meanwhile is happy to give the strike back to the lower order batters. He is more content in finishing not out to boost up his average. The suspension has meant nothing for Dickwella. He continues to be impulsive, impatient, incompetent and incorrigible.

On a track where the bowlers had lot of assistance, India managed to score 252 runs having won the toss. Sri Lanka had reduced them to 126 for five but the last five batsmen contributed another 126 to help the team to a competitive total.

Sri Lanka were shot out for 109 runs in their first innings and at one stage were in danger of being bowled out for their lowest score against India. None of the batters managed a half-century as Jasprit Bumrah was on the money finishing with five wickets.

India declared their second innings on 303 for nine. Rishab Pant was like batting on a different wicket as he smashed 50 off 27 balls with six fours and two sixes. He broke Kapil Dev’s Indian record for fastest half-century in Tests. Kapil had scored in 30 deliveries against Pakistan 40 years ago. Pant’s record means nothing much against this hapless bowling attack.

Sri Lanka finished day two on 28 for one chasing an improbable target of 447. They still need 419 runs with nine wickets in hand.

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Sports

Clean promises, dirty selection

Published

5 hours ago

2025/12/21

Thilina Walpola

Pramodya Wickramasinghe

This week’s revamp of the national selection panel, capped by the return of a proven failure, has sent shockwaves through cricketing circles, leaving jaws on the floor and eyebrows firmly raised. What is even more baffling is the timing. With barely two months to go for the World Cup that Sri Lanka will co-host, why this mad dash to reshuffle the deck? It smacks of panic rather than planning.

Yes, the term of the selection panel had technically expired. But cricket, like life, is not always played by the letter of the law alone. Common sense, that increasingly rare commodity, suggested a simple two-month extension for continuity’s sake. Upul Tharanga, after all, had done a stellar job: transparent, practical and refreshingly free of smoke and mirrors. Few would have raised a murmur had he been granted an extension. Under his watch, Sri Lanka won a Test in England after a decade in the wilderness, chalked up series wins over India and Australia and climbed to fourth in the ODI rankings. That is a CV that reads far better than that of the man now warming the chairman’s seat.

The only conclusion one can reasonably draw is that this appointment was rushed through for political reasons. NPP strongman Upul Kumarapperuma stands accused of nudging Pramodya Wickramasinghe back into the chief selector’s chair. When contacted by this newspaper, Kumarapperuma denied any interference, but conceded that the two were classmates at Rahula College, Matara, are close friends and that Pramodya had attended his political rallies in Matara in the lead-up to last year’s General Election. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you don’t need the third umpire.

The Sports Minister has defended the decision, arguing that he could choose only from among those who had applied for the post. That defence doesn’t quite stand up to scrutiny. Cricket history offers several counter examples. The most recent is Graeme Labrooy, appointed in 2017 despite not applying. He did a commendable job and during his tenure Sri Lanka ended Pakistan’s decade long unbeaten run in the UAE, their adopted fortress due to civil unrest back home. If exceptions could be made then, why not now? Why wasn’t the same discretion shown when it mattered most?

The Minister’s move to include a woman in the selection panel deserves applause and is long overdue, the first such appointment in Sri Lanka’s cricketing history. Sadly, that progressive step has been eclipsed by the choice of chairman, undoing much of the goodwill in one clumsy stroke. A quick straw poll among fans would tell its own story.

There is no denying that the NPP has done several commendable things since coming to power, standing shoulder to shoulder with the common man. The decision to give up perks and privileges has struck a chord with the public. But the appointment of the cricket selection committee has left a distinctly bad taste. Those calling the shots appear to have been hoodwinked by forces within. That, at least, is the inescapable conclusion.

The government’s Clean Sri Lanka project is gathering momentum, but on the cricketing front the broom seems to have been left in the pavilion. A bit of homework would have unearthed the many alleged scandals where this individual’s name has surfaced — from clearing acres of pristine forest land for banana cultivation to lottery scams and the controversial purchase of bus ticketing machines for the Transport Ministry. So much for clean hands and straight bats.

As for Pramodya’s previous stint as chief selector, it was a car crash in slow motion. Sri Lanka stumbled through multiple qualifying rounds in World Cups and then ended up ninth in a ten team World Cup in 2023 and missed out on the Champions Trophy altogether. To see him parachuted back two years later is beyond belief. A bull in a china shop would cause less damage.

If Sri Lanka come a cropper at the World Cup, the buck must stop somewhere. And it should stop with the government, particularly those representing the Matara district, who chose to play politics promoting their lackeys when the nation needed a steady opener at the crease. How sad!

by Rex Clementine ✍️

Sports

Lyon, Cummins shut the door on England’s slim Ashes hopes

Published

11 hours ago

2025/12/20

Priyan

Nathan Lyon celebrates after snaring Harry Brook [Cricinfo]

Australian relentlessness in Adelaide has all but ensured possession of the Ashes for two more years. Set a world-record target of 435 to win the third Test and keep the series alive, England found some belated fibre to their batting, led chiefly by Zak Crawley’s 85 – only for the enduring excellence of Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon to emphatically shut the door on them.

Cummins took the first three wickets to fall, including Joe Root for the 13th time in Tests, before Lyon plucked out three more during the final session to break England’s resoBrydon Carse lve. Crawley played admirably but could not convert what would have been a second hundred against Australia, lured from his ground by Lyon with the shadows beginning to lengthen for Alex Carey to complete a quicksilver stumping.

Although Jamie Smith, who played two scoring shots in 30 balls, and Will Jacks negotiated a pathway to the close, England were still more than 200 runs from their target with four wickets standing as Australia closed in on a decisive 3-0 lead. Barring miracles from the lower order on Sunday, England were set to concede the urn inside just 11 days of cricket.

Australia’s dominant position in this match had been constructed around a bristling 170 from Travis Head, but England were clinical with the ball during the morning session on day four, six wickets going down in just over 90 minutes’ play to at least prevent a mammoth target progressing towards the gargantuan.

One of the central tenets of England’s Bazball era has been that they love a chase – the clear lines of a fourth-innings requirement bringing the best out of a mercurial batting unit. At 2-0 down, and needing a win to stay alive in the series, they had clarity in abundance. But even as Adelaide Oval remained on the friendlier side for batting, the size of the task ahead of England became crystal as Cummins struck twice in his opening spell either side of lunch.

Ben Duckett’s torrid tour continued as he poked recklessly at his second ball to be taken at slip. Ollie Pope was then given a thorough working over by Cummins and Mitchell Starc, though it took a brilliant catch from Marnus Labuschagne, diving one-handed at second slip, to send him on his way for what may be the last time in Test whites.

England rebuilt through the afternoon with a measured 78-run stand between Crawley and Root. But the immaculate Cummins undid Root once again in his first over after tea. Just as in the first innings, Cummins’ probing around the line of off stump was too much for Root to withstand as he fiddled behind, his anguish apparent as he thumped the back of his bat and stalked from the field.

In truth, there was very little Bazballing from England’s top order as they opted for a more conventional approach – scarred, perhaps, by their misadventures in Perth and Brisbane. Crawley scored one run from his first 28 balls, by which point England were two wickets down, but was rewarded for his patience with his highest return of the series, an innings replete with controlled drives and good judgement. Like Root, he was proactive in sweeping and reverse-sweeping against Lyon, whose initial six-over spell went for 35 and led to Cummins calling on Head after tea.

Crawley and Harry Brook put on another half-century stand, though Brook lived dangerously at times, despite an apparent effort to rein in some of his attacking instincts. He was tied down by Scott Boland bowling with the keeper up, and got away with a miscued ramp that came off the toe of the bat with his stumps exposed; as the ball rolled away to square leg, he also had to swiftly abort an attempted run.

Brook did capitalise on Boland dropping short to cuff a boundary, but his only other four came when reverse-sweeping Lyon – and that shot was to bring about his downfall, losing his shape in ungainly fashion as the ball dipped and spun to clip leg stump. Brook hung around, seemingly bewildered at being bowled, but the message for England was clear.

Lyon now slipped into his groove, removing Ben Stokes for 10th time in Tests with a ripping offbreak that drifted in towards middle and leg before spinning past a forward defensive to hit the top of off. When Crawley overbalanced pushing at one that went on with the arm, Carey’s glovework did the rest. England were 194 for 6 and not even the possibility of rain cutting into the final day could offer any solace, with their winless run in Australia set to extend to 18 Tests.

Australia had resumed on Saturday in a position of control, buttressed by Head’s second hundred of the series and an unbroken partnership with fellow South Australian Carey. They might have had designs on batting until well beyond the lunch break, to extinguish the last embers of English fight – but any declaration speculation was quickly shelved as the innings unraveled after the dismissal of Head.

England opened up with Stokes, the captain having not bowled a ball on day three, but Australia’s fifth-wicket pair initially went about their work in untroubled fashion, Head carving and clipping boundaries to go past 150. They had added 40 in under eight overs, with Head closing in on his career-best 175 against West Indies on this ground three years ago, when an attempt to hoick Josh Tongue for six ended up in the hands of Crawley at deep square leg – despite a late adjustment as he lost the flight of the ball.

That ended a stand worth 162 and Carey had other landmarks to consider, pushing Australia’s lead above 400 while moving closer to becoming only the third wicketkeeper to score twin hundreds in a Test. He was stopped short by Stokes – who had seen an lbw decision against Josh Inglis overturned by the presence of an inside edge in his previous over – as a well-directed short ball ended up in the hands of leg slip via Carey’s glove.

Inglis could not make the most of his reprieve, edging Tongue behind as he tried to open the face, and the new ball did for Australia’s tail: Brydon Carse removing Cummins and Lyon with consecutive deliveries before Archer completed the job, a collapse of 6 for 38 lifting English spirits – for all of eight balls.

Brief scores:
England 286 and 207 for 6 (Zak Crawley 85; Pat Cummins 3-24, Nathan Lyon 3-64) need 228 runs to beat Australia 371 and 349 (Travis Head 170, Alex Carey 72; Josh Tongue 4-70, Brydon Carse 3-80)

[Cricinfo]

Sports

Hodge hundred keeps West Indies’ fight on

Published

11 hours ago

2025/12/20

Priyan

Kavem Hodge scored his second Test hundred

Slow-burn thrillers aren’t for everyone. Mount Maunganui’s been screening one for the past three days and just as the draw was starting to turn favourite, things started to happen. “Ooooh my Goooddddd,” cried Kaveem Hodge rolling around on the floor. Apparently, he was only allowed a second Test match century if he could show he could take a cricket ball to the crown jewels. He did. On 97, he put his agonised body through the trauma of a quickly run two, and on 99, decided running is for losers and whacked a pull shot to the square-leg boundary.

West Indies went to stumps on 381 for 6, and trailing by 194, but there is uncertainty around two of the wickets they have in hand. Shai Hope was holed up in his hotel all of Friday and he hasn’t really been seen since. It is reported that he is unwell and as team-mate after team-mate came in ahead of him, it is starting to look serious enough to prevent him from batting Kemar Roach is down with a hamstring injury he picked up on the first day and his status is unclear as well.

New Zealand will remain hopeful of a positive result, particularly on the evidence of how they roused themselves in the final session. They were tired. The slow pace of the pitch was negating the movement that was still on offer. So there was a lot of oohs and aahs but never the aha! Until Daryl Mitchell was given the ball and he just trundled in and trapped Justin Greaves lbw. Three balls later, Ajaz Patel had Roston Chase trapped in front as well.

West Indies had racked up fifty partnership after fifty partnership – four of their top five wickets were able to bed in. They’d proven hard to crack. Then all of a sudden, a dibbly-dobbly bowler and a man who had never taken a Test wicket at home broke through.

Slow burn thrillers. Gotta love ’em.

Hodge batting in the 90s started to get uncomfortable. Anderson Phillip got hit in the head. New Zealand missed an edge through to the keeper. The replay went up on the big screen and Tom Latham said, “Oh, not again!”, throwing back to the missed opportunity when they had no reviews in Christchurch and Roach lbw only for the umpire to shake his head. There’s still two more days of this left.

Hodge’s Test career has been a slow burn too and at one point was in danger of being put out. He had been dropped during the home summer with only two of his previous 15 innings crossing the 30-run mark. Speaking at the end of the day’s play, he had the grace to accept that, saying if the employees aren’t giving what is expected of them, bosses will look elsewhere.

West Indies came back to him for this tour of New Zealand and he made it a priority to figure out a way to bat against the moving ball. This challenge, far from making him shrink, triggered the analytical side of him. He has a degree in sports science and those principles might have come in handy to recognise that he could leverage his strength, scoring square of the wicket, into runs, “Plan your work, work your plan,” he said at the end of the day on 109 not out.

Hodge looked suspect initially, surviving outside edges through the slip cordon and berating himself about his front foot’s reluctance to get in line with the ball. But none of that deterred him from doing the basics right; from being ready for the next ball; from gaining better awareness of his off stump. With more and more time in the middle, he was able to get his body moving the way he wanted. The strength of his defence began to shine through – soft hands, bat face pointed down to make sure the ball didn’t reach the close catchers – and the bowlers began looking elsewhere. Hodge punished them for their lack of perseverance, playing some of the most crisp pull shots. The early struggle and the method to get out of it made the final yield all the better.

Tevin Imlach, batting at No. 4 in place of Hope soon after his captain had wondered where he was trying to score his runs, put in a decent shift which included running down the pitch at Ajaz and hoisting him over the top for a straight six. That shot was a direct response to the left-arm spinner almost running through his defence with an arm ball.

Alick Athanaze was all class. He, like Hodge who was his room-mate as they came up playing together in Dominica, was back-foot dominant. Punches and whips and cuts all eye-catching for the sound off the bat and the balance at the crease.

Greaves spoke on Friday about bringing glory back to West Indies and it is clearly not beyond him. Once, a mere forward defensive was almost enough to carry the ball to the long-off boundary.

Each of those three players had the chance to go big in largely placid conditions but they were all cut short. Imlach out for 27 driving at a ball that wasn’t pitched up and could’ve been left alone. Athanaze left a nothing ball from Ajaz that would’ve comfortably missed leg stump but for a cruel deflection off his front leg. He was 45 off 57. Greaves (43 off 69) missed a straight ball from Mitchell and needed a review to see just how plumb he was. New Zealand’s batters had been ruthless. West Indies’ had work to do.

Jacob Duffy, the highest wicket-taker of the series, ran in with purpose whether his job was to strike early – which he did, John Campbell falling without adding to his overnight score of 45 – or do some donkey work – he cranked his pace up to 144kph for the last over of the day which he spent banging the ball into the pitch to see if he could benefit from a bit of variable bounce.

Ajaz, who hasn’t played a Test at home for five years, and whose 85 wickets until now were all the result of work done away from home, made the most of the wind blowing across the ground, just lobbing the ball up at the high-70-low-80 kph range and getting good drift and dip. Michael Rae overcame a laceration to his shin to keep trucking in. Zak Foulkes, a swing bowler out of place on a pitch which was helping only those who could hit the deck hard, tried his best. New Zealand were a much-improved bowling side. Their discipline was up. They didn’t let their shoulders sag even as the ball got soft and partnerships kept building. That mentality is going to be crucial as the slow burn in Mount Maunganui continues.

Brief scores:
West Indies 381 for 6 (Kaveem Hodge 109*, Brandon King 63; Jacob Duffy 2-79) trail New Zealand 575 for 8 dec (Devon Conway 227, Tom Latham 137, Rachin Ravindra 72*; Justin Greaves 2-83) by 194 runs

[Cricinfo]