Have The Sri Lankans Gone In At SSC With The Right Bowling?
Now that the Sri Lankan side has got its batting out of its way by slamming another of those 600-plus totals, it is the turn of the bowling to do a Galle-encore. However, the big question is whether they will be able to do it on a track that has so far looked like it has been heavily sedated in a bid to allow it a good five days of sleep.
What has been a topic of hot discussion amongst the media is the paradigm change in the Sri Lankan bowling attack from the one we saw in the first Test match. While two of those changes were forced, the other two were almost uncalled for, and begs many questions.
In the first Test match, the Sri Lankans had Lasith Malinga, Chanaka Welegedara, Muthiah Muralitharan and Rangana Herath playing for the side, apart from the all-rounder Angelo Mathews. In the ongoing second Test match at the SSC in Colombo, apart from Mathews, it is a totally new line-up.
Muralitharan was playing in his last game at Galle, and post his retirement, the selection of one of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ajantha-c42419 Mendis and Suraj Randiv was a foregone conclusion. Then, Malinga injured himself and either Dilhara Fernando or Dammika Prasad were to join in the side. At the toss, captain Kumar Sangakkara surprised everyone by announcing that Fernando, Prasad, Mendis and Randiv will also play in the game. Out went Herath and Welegedara for no explicable reasons.
Welegedara’s dismissal from the side is big question-mark. After all, Welegedara had picked up the wicket of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Virender-Sehwag-c95429 in both the innings of the first Test match. Sehwag is the most dangerous batsman in the Indian side, and has been a thorn in the Lankan flesh for ages now. To be able to send him back twice in game only means that he had acquired the edge that one needs to get rid of a batsman as unorthodox as Sehwag.
Besides, Welegedara would have added a new dimension to the bowling. Both, Prasad and Fernando are the quick bowlers who can hurry the batsmen but lack the ability to swing the ball. Welegedara is a swing bowler, who can get it to go both ways – any swing in the track and that would have been definitely exploited by the bowler. Add that to the fact that he is a left-handed bowler, and it would have definitely made http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750’s task a little more difficult.
The other bowler who was shown the door was Herath. This was a 50-50 decision, and that was to do with the fact that the Indians have been able to handle him rather well in the last few games. In fact, Herath has played in the last four games in the last eight months between the two sides, and conceded 659 runs in taking his 12 wickets. This gives him an average of 55 runs per wicket, which is hardly par for the course.
The question-mark then is whether Randiv was the right option to go ahead with. After all, Randiv is an off-spinner and so is Mendis. Hence, both the bowlers will get the ball to come into the right-handed batsmen. This lack of variety may come back later to hurt the Sri Lankan side.
The other option that the Sri Lankan side could have looked at is Malinga Bandara, a leg-spinner who last played in a Test match four years ago, but was a part of the Sri Lankan ODI team that played this year. The selectors may be looking into the future but Bandara is only 30, an age where many spinners actually start bowling much better as they acquire more experience.
Clearly, the result of the ongoing Test match could make the selectors reconsider their decisions.
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