Sri Lanka > Reviews (9)

Sri Lanka have been following their disappointing tour of South Africa with better performances in New Zealand. When they return home they will find the England touring party their next opponents already in the country preparing for the test and one-day series.

There is no doubt that the South African tour was hugely disappointing and a 3-0 series whitewash was compounded by the fact that the defeats in the second and final tests were by such a huge margin. During this series Sri Lanka found it impossible to post large scores and also had little bowling back up for Muttiah Muralitharan. This was particularly true when Muralitharan missed the last test.

In New Zealand the performances of the Sri Lankan tourists against the home team have improved but New Zealand are probably, with Zimbabwe, the weakest test team at the moment. This will undoubtedly help their morale before England arrive. As the England team could also be considered, like Sri Lanka, to be better than New Zealand but inferior to South Africa it promises to be a close test series later this month.

Sri Lanka are captained by opening batsman Sanath Jayasuriya. He is a hard hitting opener with the capability to build huge innings though since becoming captain has been less fluent. He now has 7 test centuries to his name. His usual openuing partner is Mahela Jayawardene with whom has shared some good partnerships. As befits a team which in 1997 broke the test record for an innings they have a good top order. It is normally capable of a better performance than they put up in South Africa. That record test score of 952-6 eclipsed the 903-7 declared scored by England in an Ashes test in 1938. They have excellent quality with Romesh Kaluwitharana, vice captain Marvan Atapattu who has scored 5 test centuries, Russel Arnold and the very capable wicketkeeper Kumar Sangakkara. Arnold has blossomed so far in New Zealand and promises to be the next of the great Sri Lankan batsmen.

The middle order has been supplemented with the return of the veteran Aravinda de Silva. De Silva appeared to lose interest after losing the captaincy but remains one of his country’s best batsmen. Kumar Dharmasena is capable also of batting patiently in the middle order and may be included as an all-rounder against England. Dharmasena like Muralitharan has had his bowling action queried but has been found to have a legitimate arm action. Avishka Gunawardene may be given another chance but this left handed batsman has thus far not proved good enough.

The bowling attack does rely a lot on Muttiah Muralitharan and having already taken over 300 test wickets he is already ranked 4th in the most recent statistics. During 2000 he took 75 wickets which is the most any bowler has ever taken in a calendar year. Of course when you consider the test schedule now compared with only 10 years ago this is a little easier. It helps Muralitharan to achieve these records when he takes such a high proportion of the wickets which Sri Lanka take though of course this is perhaps to the detriment of the teams achievements generally.

A similar dominance of a teams test wicket taking was that of Sir Richard Hadlee for New Zealand in the 1980s. Of course when the wicket is not prepared for spin then Muralitharan’s ability is a little negated.

It is the lack of bowlers of true fast pace which afflicts Sri Lanka in the way it has done with India. Leaving aside new test nation Bangladesh of the teams from the Indian sub-continent only Pakistan have produced fast bowlers capable of blowing away the opposition and of course they have achieved it with a succession of fast bowlers. Presently Sri Lanka’s attack is opened by Chaminda Vaas and he is capable of upsetting the top order but is not in the class of Darren Gough for example. Eric Upashanta did not make the test team in South Africa and has been inconsistent when picked. He is however having a good tour in New Zealand. Upashanta may also have consideration because of his capability with the bat and may feature in the middle order with his bowling as a back-up. Ruchira Perera may be given a chance as due to his being a left-handed bowler he gives some variety to the attack and again though inconsistent he does attack batsmen.

Nuwan Zoysa though will be one to watch. He is also a left handed bowler but has suffered from a few injuries. If fully fit, he will be a danger. To date though he only has a poor 28 wickets from 16 tests. Promodya Wickramesinghe has been recalled for his usually accurate right arm medium pace. He has 85 test wickets from 40 tests.

The Sri Lankans are coached by Dav Whatmore who had a reasonably successful season with Lancashire.
Sri Lanka are in a state of transistion and will hope for a good showing against England. However the England team put up a good showing against the spin of Saqlain Mushtaq and Mushtaq Ahmed in Pakistan and I think England could well triumph again.