With cricket fast becoming more and more a batsmen’s game, the role of the all-rounder has never been more important.
The value of all-round capabilities can be seen in the balance players like Hardik Pandya, Ravichandran Ashwin, Shakib Al Hasan and Shoaib Malik bring to their teams. In the case of Ashwin in particular, his stability at Number 6 has allowed India to go into Tests with just 5 pure batsmen. However, it remains to be seen if this strategy will work overseas.
In the past, the need for all-rounders was seen mostly in limited overs cricket, however, with the success of players like Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali and Ravindra Jadeja, all-rounders are now an essential part of any Test team as well.
England found this out the hard way during the Ashes as they have, thus far, struggled to compete after losing prized all-rounder Ben Stokes a few weeks prior to the all-important series. One may argue that England would still be 3-0 down even if they had Stokes in their ranks, but, it is clear to see that the team’s balance is affected by his absence.
Stokes is what you would call a genuine all-rounder, and by that what I mean is a guy who could make it into the side as either a pure batsman or a fast bowler.
Born in Christchurch, New Zealand, Stokes’ talent was clear from an early age. His consistent performances in the Junior and County levels saw him get into the England set-up in 2011.
Stokes shot to stardom when he hit a brilliant maiden Test century in the third Ashes Test of the 2013/14 series. Although England suffered a humiliating and somewhat unforeseen 5-0 series defeat, Stokes was by far the highlight for the tourists during the series, taking 15 wickets and finishing as the third-highest run getter with 279 runs.
Since then Stokes has played 39 Tests, scoring nearly 2500 runs at an average of 35. He has also managed 95 Test wickets. What’s interesting is, Stokes has been Man of the Match in Tests on 5 occasions, clearly implying that he is an impact player. A similar record in the limited overs formats has ensured that he retained his place in a strong English line-up.
For Sri Lanka, Angelo Mathews was expected to go on to fulfill this key role, however, constant recurring injuries have let the man down.
Incredibly talented and street-smart, Mathews is good at adapting to different situations,and showed signs of going on to becoming a Sri Lankan great early on when he played for the Sri Lanka Under-19s at just 16 and captained the team in the 2006 Under-19 World Cup.
Mathews demeanor earned him the captaincy of the national team and led a team consisting of greats TM Dilshan, Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara. Mathews certainly led from the front during his tenor of captaincy and his ability to finish games won him many accolades over the years.
However, Mathews’ real value lies in his ability to bowl some handy medium pace as we have seen in the most recent past with him taking the new ball against India in the ODIs. Even delivering 5-6 overs a game helps the Lankan cause as Mathews is comfortably the team’s best batsman as well.
Injuries have surely been his enemy throughout his career but Mathews could be considered as the only real all-rounder Sri Lanka have in their ranks.
Sri Lanka have struggled on this front, being unable to produce a good enough all-rounder in any format of the game. In a bid to unearth the next Jacques Kallis or Sanath Jaysuriya, Sri Lanka have tried out a plethora of ‘all-rounders’.
From the current limited overs captain Thisara Perera, to the much talked about Dasun Shanaka, players have come and gone, unable to establish a place in the team as a genuine all-rounder.
So, what do the selectors do? Sri Lanka cricket’s criteria seems to be to pick the guys who can do a little bit of everything. They seem to have failed to realize that to win games of cricket, you need to make an impact and it is in this area that the ‘all-rounders’ have failed.
Too often we see players who can bat a bit and bowl a bit, who wouldn’t be able to make it into the team as either a batsman or bowler, taking up spaces in the team. This hunt for an all-rounder is hurting the Lankans as more often than not, as the utility players seem unable to deliver as either a batsman or bowler.
