Cricket: The sagging morale that boosted from doldrums with ODI series win against Proteas

It was apparently not a flash in the pan for our white-ball cricket team for breaking the losing streak ‘hoodoo’ against formidable India.

On Tuesday at the RPICS in Colombo, Sri Lanka beat a more formidable South African team to gain a series win after an eight-year drought in a bilateral series. 

Until the beginning of this series the tally stood at 20 loses to only five wins. With this win added 10 more Super League points but with a slight deduction for a slower over rate.

After the successful completion of the SLC Invitation T20 League tournament, focus on fitness, the endeavors of coaching staff and selectors, the newly-knit outfit verified effective a series win in the ODIs concluded, a triumph after a terrible record of 25 losses against five wins in eight bilateral series.

With one victory each, the third and final ODI was crucial for both teams. 

Though the Proteas, the fifth ranked ODI team opted for an unchanged team, our selectors, after much deliberation made three changes. 

Dinesh Chandimal, Kamindu Mendis and Maheesh Theekshana coming in for Minod Bhanuka, Bhanuka Rajapaksa and Akila Dhananjaya, the team looked a far more balanced outfit.

MaheeshTheekshana was debuting as the only Sri Lankan cricketer to play born in the 21st century. 

The wicket was a new pitch and dry surface was supposed to favour spin but a bit on the slower side. 

Having won the toss Dasun Shanaka opted to bat sans any hesitation. 

The Proteas opened with their regular paceman Kagiso Rabada and left-arm spinner skipper Keshav Maharaj. 

Openers Avishka Fernando and Chandimal succumbed early, both being ruled out by the third umpire on reviewing cheaply. 

Batting against the spin quartet of Maharaj, Linde, Markram and Shamsi all completing their quota of overs ,was a bit cumbersome with wickets falling at regular intervals. 

But Charith Asalanka, by defending, top scored again with 47 but in a more sedate inning, saved the side from embarrassment. 

The tail wagged with Chameera leading the bunch with 29 runs to end up with a respectable 203 for 9 wickets. Once more Sri Lanka survived the full 50 overs, which certainly is a good premonition.

The Proteas batsmen were never comfortable with the pace of Chameera and spin of Hasaranga, Praveen and debutant Theekshana, the mystery spinner whose off-spin, googly and carrom ball was called ‘all sorts spinner’. 

Also termed by Russell Arnold in a pre-match zoom discussion as an ‘anam manam’ bowler, ‘bamboozled’ the visitors. 

The Proteas batsmen were all at sea as they had not much heard or seen exposed, young Theekshana, an old Benedictine who had only represented Colts CC, the T10 League, and the Lanka Premier League. 

The Proteas could amass only a paltry 125 runs in just 30 overs with the last pair of Maharaj and Shamsi adding 23 runs, which prevented them been dismissed for their lowest score of 121 against Sri Lanka, leaving hosts winners by 78 runs. 

Asalanka, a rural lad from Elpitiya, a Richmondite, a former Skipper of the Sri Lanka U-19 team, for his 72, 77 and 47 was named the ‘Man of the Series’ while Chameera for his painstaking 29 and best bowling figures was adjudged ‘Man of the Match’.

At the post-match media briefing skipper Shanaka had to answer to a bombardment of interrogations posed by media personnel. 

For the success he attributed, for the environment he had created among all players whether junior or senior to express opinion as hitherto not tolerated. 

This made all players to be free and united. 

The selection of Theekshana was his proposal which the selectors backed. 

He defended the batsmen not been able to face spin saying it was mainly due to the surface as the batsmen performed against spin in the first match while it was swing, rain interruption, and D/L that caused the batting debacle in the second ODI.

However, he admitted that the dot ball count was on the high side for which fine tuning is needed to be done for that issue. 

Shanaka also added that any talented cricketer should be identified quoting the example of Asalanka, who failed in England but came back strong after he was trusted by the selectors as possessing flair in abundance.

There are two more T20 series against the Proteas, Oman and preliminary WC T20 Series prior to the T20 WC proper on October 24 this year to build a virtuous team. 

Finally he said that in this time of the epidemic all fans would have been glued to the TV watching live. 

When normalcy would commence coming to the venues to support the team which augurs well for Sri Lanka.

With this emphatic win all fans and administrators should be happy as our cricket, specially the white-ball version is on a winning stretch overlooking the losing streak ‘hoodoo’, now only history both in the T20 and ODI formats. 

It is time to nudge on in the same vein like we performed against the formidable Indians in the forthcoming white-ball T20 series against the Proteas in the second leg of the white-ball series. 

All fans and well wishes would look forward to repeat the triumph against India recently.

(Sunil Thenabadu in Brisbane -- sthenabadu@hotmail.com)