A Sri Lankan left-hand batsman made a big score amid a batting collapse, and at the end of the day, his team was somehow still heading towards an underwhelming total. Sounds familiar?
Andrew Fidel Fernando in Pallekele03-Jul-2015Many teams will allow one languid left-hander with acute allergies outside off stump, into the team. However, with Upul Tharanga, Lahiru Thirimanne and Jehan Mubarak all in the side, Sri Lanka seem to have had an HR malfunction and hired everyone in the country that fit this description. All day long the lefties took turns thrilling and frustrating, smoking fours through the ring, then poking jerkily at the ball. When the day wound to a close, the hosts were on the brink of an underwhelming total. They would have been far worse off had Dimuth Karunaratne not set himself apart.’Gave away too many wickets’
Dimuth Karunaratne suggested Sri Lanka may be headed for difficulty as a result of the three quick wickets late on day one. Karunaratne and Dhammika Prasad were dismissed off successive deliveries not long before Dinesh Chandimal fell to the second new ball. Sri Lanka lost those three wickets for 16 runs, to finish on 272 for 8.
“The wicket was lively in the first two sessions, and there’s still a bit in it for the fast bowlers,” Karunaratne said. “We played ok, but we gave away too many wickets in the last session. If we had pushed it to 270 for 5 by the end of the day, we could have finished well. I think by tomorrow it will become better for batting, because the sun has come out and dried the pitch. That said, there is a bit of turn, so we have a chance as long as we put the ball in the right place.”
The match was Sri Lanka’s first without either Kumar Sangakkara or Mahela Jayawardene since 2002. Though the day had not been a complete failure, Karunaratne said the lack of substantial contributions from the middle order hurt the side.
“I think we coped ok with the lack of Kumar , but there are definitely things to improve. Angelo and Lahiru’s dismissals were a little unfortunate. If they had stayed and batted for longer, we would have been able to sit on a good total. Tharindu Kaushal can bat a bit. If Suranga Lakmal and Nuwan Pradeep support him, maybe we can get up to 300, and that would be good for us psychologically.”
Tharanga has 14 international tons and a gallery of offside drives. Thirimanne has the vice-captaincy, and with it, the knowledge that selectors will hesitate to drop him. Mubarak has years of domestic experience. Karunaratne, with none of these, has now made the highest score of the series. Knowing they can’t immediately replace Kumar Sangakkara’s runs, Sri Lanka seem to have flooded this batting order with men who can at least emulate his style. On Friday, Karunaratne was alone in engaging the patience and self-denial that was so often the bedrock of a Sangakkara innings.On a pitch with little live grass, Karunaratne’s approach in the first session contrasted sharply with Tharanga’s. Recalled after nearly a year out of the Test side, Tharanga played as he always does, veering wildly between the sorry and the sublime. Early in his innings, he made suicidal wafts at balls he did not need to play. Then after a few minutes of looking like he barely knew which end of the bat to hold, he struck Rahat Ali for an off-drive so sweet, it deserves to be danced to at weddings.Even the transcendental Tharanga knocks contain the early ugly moments. On Friday, when these ungainly stretches were followed by perfectly struck boundaries, Tharanga was like a drunk tumbling down a flight of stairs, only to stick the perfect somersault landing at the bottom.Karunaratne had once also been the kind of batsman who waved his bat like a sword, before falling on it while the ball was still new. But after two-and-a-half years near the top level, he has taken stock of his shortcomings and built purpose into his play. In the first hour, Karunaratne’s only boundaries came from thick edges that bounced well short of fielders, and one drive hit down the ground. Karunaratne has said his relative success in second innings came down to the pursuit of a tangible goal. He didn’t lack for focus in this innings.”When I went into bat, I saw that it wasn’t an easy wicket,” Karunaratne said. “It was seaming around a bit. What I really wanted to do was bat out the first session. I didn’t think of anything else. I barely even looked at the scoreboard. When the ball was moving around, I was really selective, and thought to hit only down the ground. That worked for me. I think I can be successful when I have a target like that in my head.”When Yasir Shah came on, only Karunaratne avoided the spiral into the legspinner’s vortex. Yasir was so accurate, and Misbah-ul-Haq’s field so precise, Pakistan effectively laid siege to Sri Lanka’s middle order, and awaited the desperate move. Tharanga had scored only 10 from 30 Yasir deliveries, before driving at a ball that caught his edge. Thirimanne had five from 18 off Yasir, before he ran at the bowler and lifted him to mid off. Normally impervious to dot-ball pressure, even Angelo Mathews lost his wicket after a lull. His failed attempt to clear mid on followed four dot balls from the five deliveries Yasir had sent him. Mubarak lasted a little longer, but was dismissed charging as well.While his team-mates knocked themselves unconscious on walls Yasir had set up all series, Karunaratne was flitting around the crease, making incisions through a tight leg side, and backing away to find runs outside off. Of Sri Lanka’s top six, he was alone in striking Yasir at over 35 per cent, scoring 45 from the 79 balls Yasir delivered to him.”Using your feet is the key,” Karunaratne said. “When you do that, you can rotate the strike, and that was the main thing I did against Yasir.”In the end, it was another legspinner that dismissed Karunaratne. He failed to read Azhar Ali’s floating paper bag of a googly, and perished to expose the tail. At the close, perhaps he understood a feeling all too familiar to Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene: that of having hit big runs, while your team somehow still heads towards an average total.At the beginning of this series, Karunaratne was one of many left-handers in the squad yet to truly nail down their position at the top level. With two fifties and a fine hundred now, he has broken away from the pack.
