Today posed a serious question on Sri Lanka’s attitude towards winning games
From the selection of today’s team to how Sangakkara approached to the stumps to Kulasekara even before McCullum had faced his first ball showed a well entrenched safety first approach to the game before it even started. This fearful approach is a real danger to our brand of cricket which was completely the opposite nearly two decades ago.
It is easy to be critical of the team selection after the game is over but this is the first issue you want to talk about when the entire match seemed hopeless on a Sri Lankan point of view. Starting from the top order, Dilshan had injured his ankle during the warm ups but had been allegedly forced to play by none other than the chief selector himself. Any Sri Lankan fan knows despite the great talent both Dilshan and Sanath had possessed they have always put their performance and interests ahead of the teams; so there was no surprises there when the later had insisted the former should just go out there and play or limp rather. This meant there was half fit Dilshan top of the order to open the batting and we were ready to give away a single in the ring when the ball is hit anywhere near him.
The selection of Dimuth Karunaratne, a custom made opening batsmen does not make any sense whatsoever unless he was allowed to bat at least at number three. Selection of Jeevan Mendis, a happy go lucky utility all-rounder, was again hopeless. It can only be justified as a cover for the failures of the batsmen or to help bowlers change ends. Yes, he ended up taking two wickets but the question you need to ask is why should you rely on a part time bowler to take two middle order wickets when you have the likes of Sachitra Senanayake sitting in the bench?
Finally we had chosen to drop Thissara Perera the only other power-house other than Angelo Mathews in the lower middle order. This again despite Thissara’s poor form is a negative call. The stocky all rounder had shown in the past of his capabilities to turn the course of a match and deserved to feel himself into the tournament against one of the strongest teams at the big stage.
Only Lasith Malinga would have known how fit he was but the way he crawled on the field suggested he was either still in his bed or not a 100% fit to play. We know he is a match-winner but by playing him with the available option of the rookie speedster Dushmantha Chameera, we risked more damage to Lasith and loosing him for the rest of the tournament. This again exposed our weakness to the opposition in our over reliance on Malinga.
To sum it up, on the field, there were two half fit fielders inside the ring in Malinga and Dilshan. Herath and Mahela not able to move briskly as they would like to and the biggest blunder of all is to pick Dinesh Chandimal as the 12th man. Now any club cricket team would know that a wicket keeper is not best accustomed to go guard the outfield and it proved costly when Chandimal almost did serious damage to his face by completely misjudging a Corey Anderson flat hit. Consequently more than half of the team were hoping that the ball wont come towards their direction which meant the young and fit leftover fielders were moved from pillar to post ball after ball.
Moving on from selection blunders, there is praise for the veterans scoring the bulk of the runs off late and the rest are not scoring but if you look at it closely, why shouldn’t they? The question you need to ask is, are these veterans really prepared to sacrifice themselves for the betterment of the team? In 1996 we had Ranatunga, Hashan and Mahanama coming in to bat at 5, 6 and 7 respectively. This gave the licence to the top 4 to go out there and attack from the word go. That was the only reason we won the world cup and that undoubtedly is our brand of cricket. Here we have Mahela who always complains about him not being allowed to open, Sangakkara never wants to bat below three regardless of match situations and Dilshan always opening the batting. You can argue these positions suit their style of batting but what is the point of having cumulatively played over a 1000 games if you cannot adjust your game and bat down the order giving the youngsters that license to showcase their skills? Clearly the two Pereras, Thissara and Kusal are victims of this approach by the veterans.
It might be too late but it is definitely time someone with a bit more sense and vision to take over the selection responsibilities and design the composition of the team to suit our brand of cricket and not to cater for individual performances and feats.
