Two reasons prompted Milan Ratnayake’s selection for the first Test against England at Old Trafford over Lahiru Kumara and Kasun Rajitha. Of the three seamers in Worcester, during the warm-up game, he bowled the best and with Sri Lanka having a long tail, it was felt that his batting could be handy. More than handy it came as he posted 72 runs on debut and stitched two valuable partnerships to enable Sri Lanka to score 236 all out in the first innings.
At 113 for seven, the writing was on the wall for Sri Lanka and a total of 150 looked beyond their reach. But Ratnayake and captain Dhananjaya de Silva added 63 runs for the first wicket to push the total towards 200 and they ended up with 236 after Ratnayake added 50 runs for the ninth wicket with Vishwa Fernando.
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“I couldn’t sleep last night. Was very excited after being told that I was going to make my debut. Then this morning to get my first Test cap from Kumar Sangakkara was sensational,” Ratnayake told journalists.
Ratnayake faced 135 balls during his innings, most by a Sri Lankan batter. He hit six fours and two sixes.
“It was a difficult pitch to bat on and their bowlers were on the money not giving too many loose deliveries. Dhananjaya told me to bat deep and not take any risks and that’s what I did. We were trying to leave as many deliveries as possible as it kept swinging the whole day. The bowlers get a lot of time to bat during training and I guess that came in handy today. Once we were down to the tail, we were determined not to give away the wickets so cheaply,” Ratnayake went on to say.
From the faroff Sri Sumangala Vidyalaya in Wariyapola, Ratnayake came under the wings of Anusha Samaranayake when he came to RPS as a net bowler and then former Sri Lanka cricketer Chamila Gamage encouraged him to join Air Force. Gamage is a fast bowling coach with SLC.
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“Mr. Sasanka Gaspilla was my coach at school. Then when I came to RPS as a net bowler, Chamila Gamage took me under his wings. I played for Air Force for four years and then went to Australia to play grade cricket. But it all came back to square one when COVID hit. I was stuck there for some time and when I returned home in 2021 I joined Moors.”
It has been a dream debut for Ratnayake with the bat. Can he make it a memorable one with the ball? Time will tell
