When weather intervenes at crucial stages of any sporting contest, it really is rotten luck. At Wimbledon, a rain delay can shift momentum to the opponent with a break in play. In rugby, it can defeat a skilled fast team and play into the hands of a dour, brutish forward pack.
In cycling, it could result in a tiny skid that may put paid your chances after three weeks of Alpine climbing. Basically, it’s shit. And when it comes to a pansy, flanneled sport like cricket, you can’t play at all. Or play for longer, or skip lunch, or tea, because, well…you just can’t.
Rain stripped the fourth and fifth days of some valuable overs. Not many, but out of the 130 something overs we had left to bowl at South Africa, we were able to bowl only 111. Twenty overs more, and the game would definitely have ended in Sri Lanka’s favour and the Test series would have been deservedly drawn.
The fact that play was lost due to rain was unfortunate. And it’s not something that we can blame on anybody. But with overcast skies for most of Sunday, the 4th day’s play, perhaps Mathews left his declaration a little bit too late. Given the way Sri Lanka batted, with Jayawardena (badly), Withanage and Dickwella all unleashing a flurry of reverse sweeps it was obvious we wanted to get a move on. And honestly, with this pitch, with our attack, 300+ a few would have been enough. In fact 300 would have been enough.
Time v Runs is an important balance to draw, and unless you have a brain freeze like SL did against Pakistan in January, fourth innings batsmen will always find 300 difficult to chase down. Too many captains err on the side of caution, and even when Dilruwan’s wicket fell, Mathews had a very slight hesitation before gesturing the declaration. Clearly, the scars of the UAE are still healing. But perhaps if he had declared at tea, or even half an hour before tea, South Africa would have had more problems.
As it turned out, they batted at less than 1.5 runs an over. Content to block, and thankful for the rain. An earlier declaration and more time to bowl at the Saffas would have allowed Lakmal to bowl a few more overs, where in the fading light and gloomy skies, Mathews desperately stuck with Herath and Perera. Mendis was not having a good match, and limited his options. The man who made eleven bowling changes in the last hour against England to win the match, departed from that, and stuck resolutely to the spinners. True, they picked up 8 wickets, but would Lakmal have played on the minds of the tail enders, and would Mathews himself have been effective on this pitch? These are questions that will remain unanswered because we still eliminate the possibility of losing before trying to win.
Good batsmen playing with no desire to score runs, can usually survive on a slow turner. Turning wickets are dangerous, when they bounce. Dust bowls make the ball stop and generally allow a good player to get forward or back and play the ball after it pitches. True, the odd ball will rip, like the one that got the magnificent AB, but that was one ripper in 111 overs. We needed more time. As much time as possible.
I don’t think we gave ourselves enough time. Given that the Saffas faced 135 overs in the first innings, they had it in them to do it again. Could we have given ourselves 150 overs, rain notwithstanding? I think we could have.
Angelo has been steadily getting better. But even in the absence of instigation from the opposition, I’d like to see him back himself with the ball, and back his attack. All of it.
There’s no shame in losing this series to the no. 1 test team in the world. We got close. Very close.
