Sweeping their way to disaster

by Rex Clementine

When South Africa hosted the 2003 World Cup, their first major cricket event to be staged in the country, Dr. Ali Bacher and his team put up a superb show. They were quite sure of going through all the way as well but their cockiness came back to hurt them as they were knocked out in the first round itself. The manner in which they failed to qualify made South Africa the laughing stock as they made an error with calculations of their target in rain affected games. It is one of the most embarrassing moments in history of cricket. Last week, in Galle  Sri Lanka came up with an equally disgraceful performance as they surrendered the first Test before lunch on day three.

Sri Lankan batsmen lacked intent, character and focus as they were shot out in 22.5 overs. That’s the most gutless performance a Sri Lankan side has come up with in the recent history. A Sri Lankan under-19 side would have come up with a better performance and given the Test team’s effort, the selectors will be left with little choice than to throw someone like Dunith Wellalage into the deep end hoping that there will be someone who values his wicket rather than giving in meekly without a fight.

Even the Australians were surprised and bemused as to how sheepishly the hosts surrendered. What that defeat also means is that Sri Lanka’s hopes of an appearance in the World Test Championship are as good as over. The team had got their batting strategies awfully wrong. There are players in this line-up who have come up with back to the wall match winning and match saving efforts under pressure both home and away.  But in the first Test, instead of trusting their defense, Sri Lankan batsmen were content to sweep their way out of trouble. Their theory was that with fielders crowding the bat and the ball turning viciously, survival was impossible. Now that the sweep backfired, what if had they trusted their natural game. Someone like Dimuth Karunaratne has seen far better spin attacks than what Australia had. Anyway he’s not a big sweeper. There are ofcourse sweepers in the side like Niroshan Dickwella. The team would have been better off trusting their strengths. Simply because the sweep worked for Australia, you can’t say it’s going to work for you too. The sweep is an high risk shot. Why Australia succeeded playing it largely was because Sri Lanka bowled crap. Australia bowled decent stuff. By bowling decently, on that Galle wicket Travis Head picked up four wickets. He had not taken a single wicket in Test cricket prior to that. It was also poor planning by Sri Lanka. Lasith Embuldeniya had struggled in Bangladesh and was dropped. He could have played against Australia ‘A’ and made a comeback. But they didn’t do that. Instead, he was told to regain his confidence playing against world’s number one ranked team in Test match cricket. How can you miss a basic thing like that?

It emerged at the post match media briefing that the sweep was premeditated. It seems they will do the same in the second Test too. Good luck to them.

The first Test lasted three days. So did the Tests in Mohali and Bangalore where they suffered heavy defeats against India. There have been series wins over West Indies and Bangladesh in between, but against bigger boys, the Sri Lankans are failing to show up. They suffered an embarrassing series defeat prior to that against England. There was talk at one point of two tiers of Test cricket. If Sri Lanka come up with such pathetic performances, you can not but agree that they deserve to play alongside Afghanistan, Ireland, West Indies and Bangladesh in the lower tier while bigger boys India, Pakistan, Australia, South Africa, Pakistan and New Zealand engage in the top tier. You don’t take a Test match beyond lunch on day three, you don’t deserve to play at the highest level. A shameful performance.