Sports
Between 99 and 199, Mathews has seen it all
By Rex Clementine
There was heartbreak for Angelo Mathews in Chittagong this week as he missed out on a double hundred in the opening Test match against Bangladesh. He joins 11 other batsmen to have missed out on a double hundred by one run. But he’s the only one to have been dismissed both on 99 and 199!
The 99 dismissal was when Mathews was young – 22 years of age – while the 199 is when he is in the twilight of his career at the age of 34. A lot has happened between the two dismissals. Mathews had gone on to captain Sri Lanka; once stepped down and once sacked, has helped the team to their maiden Test series win in England and whitewashed the Aussies 3-0.
The 99 dismissal happened in Bombay in 2009. The Wankhede was under construction to host the World Cup final and Sri Lanka’s Test match was shifted to Cricket Club of India, a stone’s throw from Bombay’s posh new ground. Also known as Brabourne Stadium, it was the first Test match to be played there in more than 30 years.
Mathews had skippered Sri Lanka Under-19 and had been taken for a tour of South Africa with the ‘A’ team. After the tour, Head Coach of the ‘A’ team Chandika Hathurusinghe told the press that Mathews should be fast tracked into the senior side. So he found himself being thrown into the deep end pretty early in his career and came out with his head held high.
There was a lot of promise those days. Mathews used to generate a pretty good pace. A surprise choice in Sri Lanka’s T-20 World Cup squad to the UK, he became the cynosure of all eyes with a couple of stunning catches at Trent Bridge. But it was his bowling that stood out in the semi-final against West Indies at The Oval.
Chris Gayle and company are a dangerous opposition in T-20 format and nobody wants to play them in a knockout clash. Mathews was entrusted the task of bowling with the new ball and he did so well accounting for West Indies’ top three. His figures of three for 16 in four overs made everyone to scream that this is the next big star of Sri Lankan cricket.
For decades, we have been searching for that fast-bowling all-rounder who’d help us balance the side, especially travelling overseas. Mathews was earmarked as the next Jacques Kallis; a penetrative bowler, an electric fielder and an excellent finisher in the short formats of the game.
But skipper Kumar Sangakkara had other ideas. He wanted Mathews to feature in Test match cricket as well. Not everyone bought into his arguments but there’s little doubt that Sanga was ahead of his time as a captain. As an administrator though, he’s a pale shadow of his former self.
Mathews was handed his Test debut in Galle two weeks after his exploits at the London Oval. His first Test wicket was Younis Khan, Pakistan’s captain. He also proved that he’s no mug with the bat in the longer format of the game, quite capable of playing the waiting game against a quality attack.
But it was on his first Test tour to India later that year we witnessed what exactly Mathews was capable of doing with the bat and why Hathurusinghe wanted him rubbing shoulders with the big boys.
Test matches are well attended in Bombay and hometown boy Sachin Tendulkar is obviously the crowd favourite.
Mathews had batted superbly and was on the verge of scoring his maiden Test hundred. He was batting with Muttiah Muralitharan and there was not much hope of the stand lasting long. So in a bid to complete his hundred, he took on Sachin’s arm and was run out for 99. He was in tears, unable to hide his disappointment and emotions. Youthful exuberance they say.
Unlike in Bombay, in Chittagong Mathews wasn’t crying. He was in fact joking. He’s seen it all and being the father of three kids he knows there’s no point in crying over spilled milk.
Sri Lanka were unlucky not to have his services in the 2011 World Cup final in Bombay as he was injured. The injury also ruled him out of the Test leg of Sri Lanka’s tour of England. But he returned for the limited over games amidst some controversy.
For a while Mathews had been groomed as Sri Lanka’s future captain and instead of him being named vice-captain to T.M. Dilshan, the job was given to a total outsider who wasn’t sure of his place in the side. This was a time when selections were being done with little transparency and if a World Cup was around the corner, the first name they would write down was Jeevan Mendis.
The maiden Test hundred would come in 2011 against the Aussies at SSC. Senior cricket writer Malcolm Conn, however, was not at all happy with the way the hundred was scored as he opinioned that Mathews had batted too slow denying an opportunity for Sri Lanka to level the series.
It was just a matter of time before Mathews was named captain. He first got the job in 2012, a day after his 25th birthday. He has seen both unprecedented success and new lows as skipper. Thrashing Aussies 3-0 was the highlight of his stint while the lowest point was when Sri Lanka suffered a first-ever series loss to Zimbabwe. He stepped down as captain but after a matter of months was urged to take over the captaincy again only to be sacked months later on flimsy grounds. Like Ranil Wickremesinghe in politics, Mathews has seen it all in cricket.
Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene have not minced any words that by this stage Mathews should have scored over 10,000 runs in both forms of the game. But the fact of the matter is Mathews is far from it and wouldn’t even get to the milestone in a single format. That’s a shame. There’s a general consensus that he didn’t push himself. Injuries also have played their part although he’s been accused of letting the grass grow under his feet. It was a rude shock when the team’s best player in white-ball cricket was given the cold shoulder last year and was axed from ODI and T-20 sides. Sanga and Mahela were responsible for grooming Mathews as a leader. They may have turned cut throat too having realized the wheels were coming off. However, they could have stopped short of twisting the knife.
Last year’s contract dispute was ugly. As the senior-most player Mathews stood his ground when the same people who had fought tooth and nail for the pound of flesh when they were playing the game wanted to bring down current player payments. Arrogance is not a good thing, but sometimes when you are taking on legends, you need an arrogant chap in your ranks just to put the legends in their places. Mathews was that arrogant chap who told the legends to fly a kite when he was offered peanuts as an annual retainer. Okay, okay, that lawyer was a mess. But in every walk of life, we have these misfits. In other words, square pegs in round holes. There was Cabraal handling the national economy, there was Hemasiri handling national security and at one point even Mervyn Silva as Media Minister.
Mathews told the legends that he will play for free and to his credit played without a contract. For a guy who earned US$ one million a year in the IPL to be offered an annual retainer of US$ 40,000 was an insult. During the dispute, Mathews also apparently told off Tom Moody. You don’t see many people having a go at big Tom. That’s the kind of leader you like to have led your national teams as we have too many yes men at the moment.
Having talked the talk in the boardrooms, Mathews had to walk the walk and he did so in Chittagong batting for close to ten hours in the scorching heat as the temperature exceeded 40 degrees Celsius. There was a lot of application and all the fitness work done in the gym was paying off.
Mathews will be featuring in his 96th Test match next week. The milestone of 100 Tests will come in a couple of months against Pakistan. It will be a huge moment for him. Just five Sri Lankans have reached the milestone before and more importantly, no cricketer has bounced back as much as Mathews after being written off. Don’t be surprised if he’s back as captain for next year’s 50 over World Cup.
The first truly heavyweight clash of this expanded T20 World Cup format comes freighted with both history and subplots. A rematch of the 2010 World T20 final at Kensington Oval, the match pits Jos Buttler’s defending champions – who are aiming to become the first team to retain the trophy – against the Australian winning machine, victors at the 2021 edition and current world title-holders in Test and ODI cricket. And that’s before you throw in the Ashes for afters.
Already there is added pressure on England, after the rain in Bridgetown led to a share of the points in their opener against Scotland (and that having conceded 90 runs from 10 overs without taking a wicket in a tepid bowling display). Lose to their oldest rivals and it will leave their Super 8 prospects open to being waylaid by the perils of net run-rate calculations, or worse.
The Scotland match was the third abandonment in five suffered by England, after a rain-affected home series against Pakistan, which has clearly hampered their readiness for this campaign after almost six months without playing T20 together. It does not take much for a side to click in this format – and England looked in decent shape when they did get on the field against Pakistan – but Buttler will be anxious for things to go their way on Saturday, if only to avoid further questions referencing the team’s disastrous ODI World Cup defence last year.
Australia, under the laidback leadership of Mitchell Marsh would love nothing more than to add to the English sense of jeopardy – having helped bundle them out of the tournament in India on the way to taking the crown. Their head to head record is less impressive in T20 however, with England having won six of the last seven completed encounters, as well as that 2010 final.
Despite a wobble with the bat, Australia avoided mishap against Oman earlier in the week, the experience of David Warner and Marcus Stoinis shining through in difficult batting conditions. Surfaces in the Caribbean – not to mention those games staged in the USA – have already had teams scratching their heads; rather than the “slug-fest” England had prepared for, following a high-scoring tour of the Caribbean in December, it looks as if boxing smart may be the way to go.
Speaking of Warner, this could be the last time he faces up against England in national colours – and another match-winning contribution would likely reduce the chances of them meeting again in the knockouts. On the other side of the card is Jofra Archer, fresh from an emotional maiden outing at Kensington Oval and ready to take on Australia for the first time in any format since 2020. Can Mark Wood fire up England’s campaign, as he did during last summer’s Ashes? Will Pat Cummins be back to harass the old enemy once again? Seconds out, it’s almost time to rumble.
Cummins is set to return after being rested for the Oman game, which saw Mitchell Starc leave the field with cramp. Starc is understood to be fine and could keep his place – which would likely see Nathan Ellis miss out. Marsh is still not fit to bowl, with Australia likely to continue with the allrounder combination of Stoinis and Maxwell to give them cover.
Australia (probable XI): David Warner, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh (capt), Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Josh Inglis (wk), Tim David, Pat Cummins, Nathan Ellis/Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood
The one change England may consider is Reece Topley coming in for Wood, with the expectation that there will be some rotation among the seamers through the course of the tournament.
England (probable XI): Phil Salt, Jos Buttler (capt & wk), Will Jacks, Jonny Bairstow, Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Chris Jordan, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Reece Topley/Mark Wood
[Cricinfo]
Once is coincidence, twice is a clue, and three times is proof.
To paraphrase Agatha Christie, that is the narrative around South Africa’s meeting with Netherlands at this T20 World Cup.
The Dutch beat South Africa at the 2022 tournament and ended their semi-final hopes in a match where South Africa appeared to be sleep walking, and then beat them again at the 2023 ODI World Cup, where they exposed South Africa’s vulnerability in the chase. If they to do the treble, not only will Netherlands take the lead in Group D, but they will offer conclusive evidence of the threat they pose to Full Members, especially South Africa.
Of course, it will take some doing after South Africa’s opening performance against Sri Lanka, where they reduced their opposition to their lowest T20I total and chased it down in fairly straightforward fashion thanks to the most stable middle-order of their white-ball era. In Aiden Markram, Tristan Stubbs, Heinrich Klaasen and David Miller, South Africa have bankers and big-hitters and, for this match, they also have the advantage of experience. They’ve already played at Eisenhower Park, and have first-hand knowledge that run-scoring doesn’t come easily;Klassen said they are prepared to use their “cricket brains” and play “smarter cricket”.
But the conditions could be good news for Netherlands, who are not naturally a line-up of big hitters and build their innings on a foundation of turning ones into twos. In other words, they tend to take a slightly more conservative approach to batting, which may work well here, but they’ll be wary of the uneven bounce of the surface and will have to come up with plans to counterattack especially against South Africa’s seamers. Their own bowlers were exemplary in Dallas and will look to build on that performance against a line-up that will likely be more proactive than Nepal’s, but who they have managed to keep quiet not once, but twice in the past. Third time’s the charm, they say.
Anrich Nortje’s stunning return to form against Sri Lanka means South Africa may not have to tinker with the bowling combination, and Gerald Coetzee and Tabraiz Shamsi may have to wait their turns to get a game. The batting line-up should be unchanged, with no space for Ryan Rickelton yet.
South Africa: Quinton de Kock (wk), Reeza Hendricks, Aiden Markam, Tristan Stubbs, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), David Miller, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Ottneil Baartman, Anrich Nortje
Conditions in New York may tempt Netherlands to include an extra seamer and they have Kyle Klein in their squad. But it could come at the expense of a shortened batting line-up and they may not want to risk that.
Netherlands: Michael Levitt, Max O’Dowd, Vikramjit Singh, Sybrand Engelbrecht, Scott Edwards (capt, wk), Bas de Leede, Teja Nidamanuru, Logan van Beek, Tim Pringle, Paul van Meekeren, Vivian Kingma
[Cricinfo]
Nuwan Thushara’s last over brought Sri Lanka screaming back into the match,as he first bowled Rishad Hossain, and then nailed Taskin Ahmed in front of the stumps with a pinpoint swinging yorker. This left Bangladesh eight wickets down, with 12 runs still to get.
However, the experienced Mahmudullah was at the crease for Bangladesh, and despite some further nervy moments, pushed Bangladesh across the line off the last ball of the 19th over.
But this was a match chiefly decided by Bangladesh’s own outstanding bowling. Mustafizur Rahman was the best among them, using shorter lengths and his cutters efficiently, to claim figures of 3 for 17. Rishad Hossain’s three-for through the middle overs also kept Sri Lanka quiet.
Mustafizur was instrumental in Sri Lanka’s downward spiral through the middle overs, which culminated in a crash-and-burn end. Ultimately, their inability to find boundaries, or even rotate strike against good Bangladesh bowling resulted in their downfall. A score of 125 for 9 always seemed poor on a decent pitch, even if their bowlers made a match of it in the end.
Brief scores:
Bangladesh 125 for 8 in 19 overs (Towhid Hridoy 40, Litton Das 36; Dhanajaya de Silva 1-11, Nuwan Thushara 4-18, Wanidu Hasaranga 2-32, Matheesha Pathirana 1-27) beat Sri Lanka124 for 9 in 20 overs (Pathum Nissanka 47, Dhananjaya de Silva 21; Tanzim Hasan Sakib 1-24, Taskin Ahmed 2-25, Mustafizur Rahman 3-17, Rishad Hossain 3-22) by two wickets
[Cricinfo]
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