Tag Archives: dilshan

Questions for Sri Lanka

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Pakistan are in a great position to go 1-0 up in the series against Sri Lanka, with 97 runs to get with 2 days and 8 wickets remaining. The new-look Pakistani bowling has been a revelation, while some of the experienced Sri Lankan batsman failed to trouble the scorers too much. For good measure, Younis Khan once again chipped in with wickets.

Assuming that Pakistan completes the task tomorrow without too many worries, there are many questions for Sri Lanka:

  1. This is not a good start for Sangakkara as a captain. We have seen how Sangakkara’s batting changed when he turned from wicketkeeper-batsman to specialist batsman. Now, will the pressures of captaincy (especially lost Tests) affect his batting? He is, by far, the best batsman in the Lankan team (Mahela included) and it would be a disaster if he under-performs.
  2. It is a little weird that the Sri Lankan team has three players with 50+ averages (Sangakkara, Jayawardene, Samaraweera) and yet have been unable to produce results in line with those averages. I have pointed out several times that Sri Lanka’s over-scheduling of matches with the lower-level Test nations like Bangladesh have inflated the averages of many in the team and prevented greater influx of fresh blood. You look at a player like Samaraweera and you wonder how he deserves a 50+ average, especially when his away record is terrible.
  3. Tillakaratne Dilshan continues as before. I know he has been in good form in the IPL and the World Twenty20, but his Test form has always been a case of, “I think they are ready to drop me, so let me hit a century” attitude. I am pretty confident that he will strike form in the last Test when Pakistan are probably up 2-0 and retain his spot for the next tour. The Sri Lankan selectors really need to light a fire under him, so that they don’t keep having average contributors in the team.
  4. Assuming Mendis is not going to do anything more in this Test, the question is: Was he over-hyped? Once batsman have started getting a feel for his bowling, Mendis does not seem to have any new tricks. Pakistan have totally taken him apart in many matches they have played. Without Murali bowling, he has been unable to put much pressure on the Pakistanis. This goes back to what I mentioned about Hussey: early success can be a career killer because the opposition concentrates a lot of think power against you and tries to derail your plans. While a more modest player is left alone, the stars are targeted sometimes mercilessly. Mendis needs to make a comeback soon.

Anyway, so far, the match has been great entertainment while we wait for the first Ashes Test.

Pakistan Miss a Trick or Two

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Today’s match against Sri Lanka almost went Pakistan’s way. They got early wickets. They got wickets frequently. They bowled out Sri Lanka on the first day. Unfortunately, they could have done much better, with Sri Lanka managing 100 off the last four wickets, and then both the Pakistani openers back within 7 overs. Maybe they should have let Sri Lankans bat another 7 overs or so to start afresh the next day.

Sri Lanka, to their frustration of their opponents, have been displaying a habit of their lesser batsmen and bowlers turning out to be heroes when their main stars (Sangakkara, Murali) fail. Today was no exception. This is good for Sri Lanka in the long run and is similar to Australia in the sense that opponents wait for retirements and injuries, but the replacements are even tougher to beat.

Of course, this could also be like the West Indies. I remember Jimmy Adams making a ton of runs when visiting India, thus preventing us from winning a series against them. But Adams never had a great career and India just happened to be a place where he clicked. I suspect Paranavitana and Thushara are also the same material who may make it difficult for Pakistan, but never fulfilling their promise in the long run.

This blog will also keep an eye on Dilshan’s fortunes during this series. Remember that we have always classified Dilshan as the ultimate maker of “convenient innings”, i.e., he just does enough to remain in the team, usually with big scores against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh and sometimes with big scores in the last Test of a series. But this year has been good for Dilshan with his form in the World Twenty20. We will see if this is his breakout year, or if it is more of the same. With a 28 in the first innings, not a good start.

Preserving the Sanctity of Test Matches

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Perhaps “sanctity” is too much of hyperbole, but I have always felt that Test matches occupy a stratospheric level in cricket or even in all sport. In what other game do you have matches that are played over 5 days (or in the past for Timeless Tests, for no pre-determined duration). Tests are meant to be the ultimate, true challenge for teams who vie to the best. Test matches are cruel to upstarts. A Test match does not reward a freak performance by an individual player unlike ODI’s and T20′s. A team cannot rejoice because of some stroke of fortune, it must keep its guard up all the time, lest the other team sense an opening and crash through it.

The nature of Test matches means that differences between teams are much more pronounced, and show up in badly one-sided results. The recently-concluded Sri Lanka-Bangladesh tour confirms this in ample measure, if you hadn’t already been convinced by the previous Bangladesh series. There is no meaningful contest here, and the only interest is which players take the opportunity to set some personal milestones, like Dilshan, who just hit a century in each innings.

So, what we get is statistics pollution. We have so many nonsense games that make a mockery of Test records. You have teams cranking up huge scores and bowling the other team for next to nothing, and players making runs and taking wickets by the bucketful. What we have is the same scenario if a Test team plays against a 1st-class team and the records are added to Test annals. 

There is a bigger problem at work here. The ICC wants to expand cricket to more countries. So Test cricket for Bangladesh seems like a wise choice. But when you have a record of 52 losses in 59 Test matches, that is not expanding cricket’s popularity. It condemns Bangladesh to be an under-achieving cricket nation and diminishes its growth. What Bangladesh needs is more close contests and, particularly, more wins.

So what I would suggest is create a 2nd tier of Test matches – a group of 5 to 10 countries that have acquitted themselves reasonably well in the ODI arena. Create a new statistics track for these Test matches, different from 1st class, but not Test level either. Have 3-day Tests to start with, so that mismatches will not result in grotesque batting orgies by one team, as they will have to declare by the 3rd day. The matches can extend to 4 days or 5 days after a year of matches. This will allow Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Kenya, UAE and other nations to play a lot more matches. They can gain greater confidence and prepare themselves for the main Test teams.

Here is the 2nd part: Bangladesh will be out of the regular Test circuit, but it can play one-off new-style Tests against the major Test playing nations. If it succeeds in winning a mini-Test, it earns the right to play 5 regular Tests in the next 24 months. If it draws a mini-Test without the help of the weather, it can play 2 regular Tests. The batting/bowling efforts of the players of the major Test teams will be recorded as part of the mini-Test stats and not the regular Test stats. As the 2nd tier progresses, more teams there can earn the right to play mini-Tests against the top Test teams. If they perform well there, they can earn the right to play regular Tests.

Thus, we keep the regular Tests pristine. We provide more match opportunities for weaker teams, and give them a way to graduate into the bigger leagues. Of course, this is all very unlikely to happen as the ICC is more concerned with money-making and ad-hoc decisions than a structured way to improve the game. We will see.

Why Bangladesh is Bad for Test Cricket

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To understand why continuing Bangladesh’s Test status is such a terrible mistake, look no further than the example of Tillakaratne Dilshan, who hit a run-a-ball 162 runs. Dilshan was playing his 50th Test and his batting statistics (an average just touching 40), if not impressive, seem good for a mid-tier team like Sri Lanka.

Unfortunately, high-level statistics rarely tell you the whole story. Dilshan has played 14 Tests against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, hitting 847 runs at an excellent average of 65. Take that out of the picture and you get a rather under-performing career of 1909 runs in 36 Tests at an average of 34.

I have no idea why Sri Lanka keeps playing so many matches against Bangladesh. It is not as if they cannot hold their own against the bigger teams. They have played remarkably well against England, West Indies and India (at home) in recent times. But by playing these meaningless games against Bangladesh, they perpetuate mediocrity and prevent talented newcomers from getting into the team.

These matches also distort history and put a question mark against true performers. For example, Muttiah Muralidharan has taken 176 wickets out of his 769 Test wickets from 25 matches with Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. By comparison, Shane Warne has 17 from just 3 matches. While Muralitharan is a genuine wicket-taker, this issue begs the question of whether he was as good as Warne.

The Sri Lankan Board should rectify this by arranging longer series with the bigger Test playing nations and reducing Tests with Bangladesh, maybe a one-off affair every couple of years, until such time when the Bangladesh team is winning ODI’s consistently.