Concerns about Sri Lanka’s spin trio

by Rex Clementine

The great game of uncertainties that cricket is, stranger things happen in this sport more often than not. By strange, we don’t mean things like computer hacking where mails are delivered to television partners to deposit hundreds of thousands of US Dollars to offshore accounts or well known underworld figures being sponsored to watch the game’s showpiece event at Lord’s. To be exact we mean what we witnessed last week in Dhaka.

For decades Sri Lanka have heavily depended on their spin bowlers to win Test matches. Even in some of their most famous overseas Test wins like – The Oval 1998, Trent Bridge 2006, Basin Reserve 2007, Kingsmead 2011, or St. George’s Park 2019 – spin has played a vital part. Spin legends Muttiah Muralitharan and Rangana Herath have rarely disappointed the team. But what if the nation had given a fair deal for quicks as well.

Not just preparing good wickets where seamers too will have a stake. But in domestic cricket ensuring that fast bowlers are not made redundant on rank turners where the new ball is in fact shared by spinners.

Cricket’s stakeholders had something serious to think about as, during the recent Test series in Bangladesh, the team’s quicks won them the series while the spinners were hardly effective. To be precise among the three spinners – Ramesh Mendis, Praveen Jayawickrama, and Lasith Embuldeniya – they shared just two wickets in two Test matches.

Usually, Sri Lankan captains have used their quicks for the containing job. The fast bowlers’ role was merely to hold one end up unless of course, you had a Chaminda Vaas in your ranks.

But in Dhaka and before that in Chittagong, the quicks were on the money. Asitha Fernando may have got all the accolades after becoming the first Sri Lankan right-arm quick to claim a match bag of ten wickets, but Kasun Rajitha, who is four years Asitha’s senior, was impressive too showing a lot of character and heart.

Bangladesh would have been happy with a couple of draws as they know that tracks that turn square could backfire against Sri Lanka. So they prepared flat decks and were caught off guard by the quicks.

Sri Lanka’s three spinners have been quite handy at home and they had finished with a rich haul of wickets in last year’s home series as they beat Bangladesh and West Indies. But those were in helpful conditions. Suddenly when the wickets are flat and not offering much of a help, the spinners lose patience and struggle.

They are not going to get helpful conditions when travelling overseas. That’s why they need to learn the art of drying up runs and creating the dot ball pressure. This Sri Lankan trio failed to do but they are still young and you hope that they learn moving forward.

More than Mendis or Jayawickrama, you felt disappointed with Embuldeniya as he had been in the system for three years now having played 16 Test matches.

Spin was a vital card that Sri Lanka used in whitewashing Australia 3-0 the last time they were here. But then that was when Rangana Herath and Dilruwan Perera were still around. Both of them are retired now and it will be interesting to see what Sri Lankan curators will do for the upcoming series. Will they back their spinners and prepare turning tracks or will they give fair pitches where everyone will have some stake?