Sri Lanka’s young wicketkeeper-batsman Niroshan Dickwella has already got under the skin of a few Indian players and as Sri Lanka were desperately trying to salvage a draw in Delhi in the Third Test match, the 24-year-old nearly went to another extreme.
Dickwella’s antics in the drawn Calcutta game earned high praise from Indian skipper Virat Kohli and his youthful exuberance seem to be never fading. India had set Sri Lanka an improbable target of 410 to win their first ever Test match on Indian soil and the Sri Lankans had only one thing in mind. That is to see off the three and half sessions to settle for a draw.
Dickwella who had held the fort together with Silva for 109 minutes and with a draw certain, he reminded the senior batsman of other probabilities.
“With less than an hour for close of play, I was having water. I was convinced that we had done the job to save the Test match. Kohli was losing his patience and then Dickwella came up to me and asked aren’t you going for the hundred,” Roshen Silva told Cricbuzz.
Silva finished unbeaten on 74 with Dickwella on 44 not out. “I told him ‘Look here, saving the Test match is of paramount importance. You never know with this Indian team. Going for personal milestones, if you lose a wicket, that’s it. Cricket is a funny game.’ I told him to forget about the hundred, we will close shop here,” Silva added.
“He is a positive guy. His idea was that scoring a hundred on debut that too in India was going to be a huge occasion. He wants to always change the game. I can’t play like him. The scoops and the flicks he plays are unbelievable. What it does is, the other team is on the back foot and not only for him even for the other batsmen they do things differently by spreading the field and stuff,” Silva went on to explain.
The hundred wasn’t the only thing that Dickwella was reminding Silva. He may not know that in 140 years of Test cricket that only one team had successfully chased more than 410 runs and was asking his partner to go for a bit of history. “He wanted to go for the target. We had to score 117 runs in 50 minutes and he said he let’s do history here. Let’s go for it,” recalled Silva.
But with over 100 First Class games to his name, Silva has seen stranger things happen in the game. “But I told him, look here. Drawing a game in India is as good as winning one.”
“You can’t change Dickwella’s game. Compared to other players he is different. He shouldn’t change his style. I suggested to him a few things out in the middle, then he said, ‘If I play like that, I will get out. Let me play my game.’ I was confident that he will do the job.”
It was a superb effort by the two young players and centurion Dhananjaya de Silva. Sri Lanka finished on 299 for five and that’s the highest fourth innings score by a visiting team in India. The previous best fourth innings score was 275 for five by West Indies in 1987 also in Delhi when Viv Richards scored a hundred and the tourists won.
Things didn’t start all that well for Silva. He was out for a duck in the first innings to Ravichandran Ashwin. The off-spinner was bowling again in the second innings when Silva came out to bat. Having nervously seen off the first three balls, he was glad a full ball on the leg-side was offered by Ashwin, which he deflected wide off Cheteshwara Pujara at leg-gully.
“Thank God I hit that boundary. No one expects to score a duck on debut. I had no clue what happened as I faced only three balls. Since I had been waiting for this opportunity for years, I badly wanted to do well and that’s not the start I wanted,” Silva went on to say.
“I walked in to bat in the second innings under massive pressure. Another duck and the end of my Test career. Then I thought not to think of this as an international game and to take it like a club match to take the pressure off. Was keen to get my first Test run off a boundary and that took a bit of pressure off.”
There was plenty of advice from Batting Coach Thilan Samaraweera as well. “Thilan said that Test cricket is like that and reminded me that I had come here through hard work. He wanted me to believe in my ability. When I came for Tea on the fifth day, he told me if you can score about 65 or 75 and save the game that would secure my place. I was determined to finish it off.”
Silva had almost given up hope of playing for Sri Lanka and wanted to earn some money playing league cricket.
“I basically wanted to go Australia and play some league cricket. I was very close to throwing away everything and going there. There were some lucrative offers and I was tempted. But I eventually decided that I will keep fighting. Nothing like playing for your country. Today is a dream come true for me. All my patience and hard work has paid off,” Silva went on to say.
Silva came to India after a successful tour of West Indies with the Sri Lanka ‘A’ team. “No one saw that series. But it was as tough as India I would say. First match we were beaten. There were two fast bowlers who were bowling at 145kmph and one guy was bowling at 140kmph. There were two good spinners as well. I think the three knocks that I played in West Indies helped me to get a spot here with the senior side,” he recalled.
