Sports
Keep backing players with right attitude
by Rex Clementine
Sri Lanka’s heart-wrenching four wicket loss in Galle on Thursday has highlighted some flaws in the team. Catching of the two teams made a huge difference in the end result. While Pakistan pulled off some stunners, Sri Lanka were sloppy dropping two catches off double centurion Saud Shakeel while a stumping chance of Naseem Shah during his 94-run stand with Shakeel for the ninth wicket went begging.
Another player who has come under the scanner is off-spinner Ramesh Mendis. While wicketkeeper Sadeera Samarawickrama is safe for the moment, Mendis is facing the axe with questions over his control. Will have to wait and see what the selectors do but from a distance it’s quite clear that both players need to be persevered with.
Sadeera replaced long standing wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella, who is quite popular among the team although he doesn’t seem to have many friends outside the team.
Several Sri Lankan players both current and recently retired have rated Dickwella to be the best wicketkeeper in the country. That may be true and it’s a pity that your best keeper can’t find a place in the team.
Let’s not deal with Dickwella’s off the field excesses but he cooked his goose with his callous attitude towards the game. Throwing away his wicket at crucial junctures of the game and not converting starts were his biggest flaws.
Dickwella was Sri Lanka’s wicketkeeper for a good ten years and featured in 54 Test matches in that period but wasn’t able to convert any of his 22 half-centuries to a hundred. You look around the cricketing world and check the records of other keepers and you are convinced that he deserved the axe. Tom Blundell of New Zealand has four Test hundreds and so does Sarfraz Ahmed of Pakistan while India’s Rishab Pant has five hundreds and all three have featured in less Tests than Dickwella. Let’s not even talk about England’s Jonny Bairstow, who is a standout among his contemporaries.
The other disappointing factor about Dickwella is his arrogance. He cost the team dearly with his horrendous reviewing. There was this Test match against England in Galle where Sri Lanka had exhausted their reviews even before their best bowler Rangana Herath had come onto bowl.
Of course, all the blame can not be placed at Dickwella’s doorstep for the captain either should have asked the keeper to get his act together or stopped trusting him. It’s a tough one because the keeper has the best view in advising the captain on whether to make the ‘T’ sign or not. Dickwella was so impulsive and advices to the captain proved to be poor. But the manner in which he appealed and pleaded with the umpire convinced you otherwise. Had he joined the film industry instead of cricket, he could have given Gamini Fonseka a good run for his money.
As Michael Atherton said of Harry Brook, “Along the way players are going to make some errors, but you should make room for players to learn from those errors and bounce back.”
Sadly for Sri Lankan cricket, Dickwella did not learn. Had he got his act together; it is he who should be understudy to Dimuth Karunaratne and not Dhananjaya de Silva.
Sadeera, in the meanwhile, is no Mahela Jayawardene either when it comes to reviewing. He made several wrong calls during the first Test. MJ of course as captain had an unblemished record with his reviews when he was captain. Why he was so successful was he reviewed only when he suspected that the umpire may have made a mistake. Perhaps, Sadeera should have a chat to MJ and pick his brains on reviewing.
It’s early days for Sadeera. When he made a hundred against Ireland on his comeback Test, it looked all too easy. But Pakistan have proved to be tough opponents and in both innings he fell for superb catches.
As for Ramesh Mendis, despite him taking a five-wicket haul in Galle in the first innings, there are questions about his control. That question has been there for some time now and it remains to be seen whether he will be given the cold shoulder at SSC now that there’s already a backup off-spin option in the squad.
The sensible thing seemed to keep backing him. Like Sadeera, Ramesh is another player who has got a good head on his shoulders .You have invested on him heavily and it only makes sense to keep backing him for players with right attitudes are very much the need of the hour for Sri Lanka.
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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