A few months ago, veteran Sri Lankan cricketer Thilan Samaraweera got an opportunity to play county cricket. The break came a week after he retired from Tests. Leading up to the stint with Worcestershire, Samaraweera moaned that had he got a break at county level a few years before, he would have been a better Test cricketer.
Four prominent Sri Lankans have left an indelible mark in county cricket in recent times. While Muttiah Muralitharan played several seasons for Lancashire having replaced Wasim Akram, left-arm seamer Chaminda Vaas represented Hampshire, Worcestershire, Middlesex and Northamptonshire during his career.
Star batsman Aravinda de Silva had a spectacular stint for Kent in 1995, accumulating 1661 runs at an average of 59. He was the third-highest run-getter that season behind Mark Ramprakash and Nasser Hussein. His top score of 255 was also the highest score of the season. Twelve years later, another stalwart, Kumar Sangakkara, came up with a fine performance for Warwickshire.
While county cricket is extremely demanding on bowlers, batsmen could certainly benefit by playing county cricket. This has been proved in the cases of Sangakkara and de Silva.
A few years ago, playing a season of county cricket was the dream of most top internationals, but the advent of IPL that coincides with the early county season, has significantly changed players’ priorities. The Kent stint was the turning point of de Silva’s career. After the stint, he flew straight to Pakistan where Sri Lanka were playing a Test series and his match winning century in Faisalabad helped Sri Lanka to win the Test, their first Test win in Pakistan. The tourists went onto win the series as well.
The stats are remarkable too: 13 of de Silva’s 20 Test centuries came after the county stint. Post county stint he averaged 49 whereas before representing Kent his Test average was a mere 37.
Remembering that successful stint in England, de Silva spoke with gocricket.com. “To be honest, Kent changed me,” he says. “The stint I had with them gave me lot of confidence. There was self belief. I played there with most of the internationals and I sort of realized that the talent the Sri Lankans had was tremendous compared to what I saw in England. That’s when I started to believe in the team and in my own ability. After the county season was over, I flew straight to Pakistan from England for a Test match and it reflected immediately. We went onto beat Pakistan for the first time and I got a century.”
The same goes with Sangakkara. The left-hander hit a purple patch soon after returning from Warwickshire. He produced scores of 6, 200*, 222*, 57, 192, 92 and 152 in his seven Test innings soon after county cricket.
“What playing county cricket does is; number one you are an overseas player and they look to you to score runs. They leave you in no doubt that they pay you to score runs,” Sangakkara tells gocricket.com. “When you go to England you are on your own and you need to make sure you do your conditioning and you take care of your food. It gives you a lot of independence and it helps you to mature as a cricketer when you play outside your country. It was a fantastic experience for me and I was over the moon to get my county cap.”
Like in de Silva’s case, Sangakkara has done outstandingly well since he made Edgbaston his home. Incidentally, his 128 Tests are split identically between the county stint he had in 2007. In the first 64 Tests before his time with Warwickshire he had 12 centuries and averaged 50. Since the county stint, however, he has scored 25 Test centuries and has an average of 66.
“The more exposure we give our players the better it is and the quicker they improve. English county cricket as a first class entity is far superior to our first class cricket,” Sangakkara says.
The riches the IPL bring are extremely lucrative for players and they prefer a season of IPL than improvement of their game by playing a season of county cricket. Sangakkara, who skipped the IPL auction a few months ago and instead opted for a brief county stint with Durham, was an exception. He went to Chester-le-Street as Sri Lanka were scheduled to tour England during the summer. A Test average of 30 in England was hurting Sangakkara’s pride and he opted to forgo the IPL to prepare well for the tour of England.
Sangakkara had impressive returns during the Test series against England. Prior to the series he had spoken passionately about making a Test hundred at Lord’s. That he achieved with an immaculate 147 in the first innings and never looked back. He came up with scores of 61, 79 and 55 in his next three Test innings in England and was the key as Sri Lanka recorded their maiden Test series win on English soil.
Younger players need to take a leaf out of Sanga’s book.
