FAREWELL TO A GREAT SERVANT OF THE GAME
By Srian Obeyesekere
Sri Lanka will need to seriously maximise their let down batting and fielding acts in a costly first test innings and 242 defeat to Australia as they front a must win second and final test on Thursday at the Galle International Cricket Stadium on a nostalgic note with opening batsman Dimuth Karunaratne having announced it would be his farewell appearance in what would be his dream hundredth test match while having stated the obvious that Sri Lanka having just four games for the entire year had been a demoralising negative handicap that had affected his batting which was one reason he had decided to call time on his career.
Indeed, the 36-year old Karunaratne, Sri Lanka’s most accomplished copybook batsman with an aggregate of 7, 172 runs in 99 tests counting 16 hundreds in a 13-year career when he held sway as the top batsman in the side when he led Sri Lanka to considerable triumphs, particularly at Galle, has made a valid point in fairness to the entire teams top batting fleet up which is undeniably a definite factor to getting rusty to hitting bad patches. In fact, ahead of him another former captain Angelo Mathews too had expressed his dismay that Sri Lanka being granted just four test matches this year by the ICC was a negative factor to making an impact in the long version of the game that is still considered to be cricket’s most integral form of all for it’s absorbing 5-day culmination over the years.
For all the minus factors beyond their control, end of the day, the second confrontation boils down to a man, of no quarters given nor asked for where Dhananjaya de Silva’s team, more than anybody else the top batsmen face a necessarily ‘must’ perform challenge nothing short of victory if Sri Lanka is to level the series in a Moment of Reality to paying absolute heed to Head Coach Sanath Jayasuriya’s ultimatum to ‘Do or Depart’ having uttered his utter disappointment over what he has denounced as poor shot selection.
As it be that the Lankan batsmen stand short of match acclimatization by the terribly negating far, far and few test matches going by an ant of four tests the whole of 2925, the awakening call as Jayasuriya has pin pointed in his disappointment over their poor strokes play is that they are ni no milk sops as he has made out in openly stating that they have plenty of playing experience to be matured enough to convert good starts to big innings.
As the Head Coach has made out, Sri Lanka’s biggest let down factor not only back home at Galle, but in New Zealand as well in the last away tour, has been the failure to stay consistently at the wicket and build up an innings which is the bottom line factor in lasting the distance in the taxing and grinding game of 5-day test cricket.
Certainly, Dhananjaya de Silva’s specialist batsmen will need to front the will power of nothing short of occupation of the crease to building a durable innings in run grafting where the ones and twos count and not playing one-day shots that has been their down fall in a waiting game of endurance and patience. By and large extravagant shot making has been their downfall. They have certainly proved they are not short of talent by their over the top hitting, but sadly lack the staying temperament to build an innings which is the zenith factor in red ball cricket.
Thus, meeting an expectant intensified Australian charge in the second test where Steve Smith’s charges will go flat out for that finally kill, will be the challenge the Lankans face in this must win game.
Of course, a cheer up strong bravado tonic skipper Dhananjaya de Silva and his team can draw from his the fact that Galle has been by and large Sri Lanka’s most match winning backyard where Prabath Jayasuriya has been their match winner in following a successful history before hi in the wake of Muttiah Muralidaran and Rangana Herath.
But to follow the laurels of the past the Lankans will need to have cut off the lethargy on the field as well where poor fielding and bowling was a let down factor.