S Thawfeeq: Sri Lanka Needs More Tests To Establish Place (13 May 1996)

Monday 13 May 1996

Sri Lanka needs more Tests to establish place in `longer game`

By Sa`adi THawfeeq

The season of 1995-6 will go down as Sri Lanka`s most memorable in their brief cricketing history in more ways than one.

What is so outstanding in their performances is that all of them have been accomplished away from home - something which a lot of critics including India`s former captain and all-rounder Kapil Dev thought Sri Lanka were not capable of achieving.

Out of a total of 28 one-day internationals, Sri Lanka played only two matches (against Zimbabwe and Kenya) at home, while all six Tests played during the period under review were away.

Apart from becoming the first team in 14 years to win a Test series in Pakistan, Sri Lanka`s cricketers proved they are world-beaters in the limited edition of the game too, by first winning the Singer Champions trophy in Sharjah and following it up with an emphatic victory in the Wills World Cup final in Lahore.

With this commendable record Sri Lanka have emerged as a force in world cricket, especially in the one-day sphere. The danger here is that unless Sri Lanka play sufficient Tests and prove that they are equally good in the longer game too, they are liable to be tagged only as `one-day kings`.

During the 1995-6 season, Sri Lanka played only six Tests, three each against Pakistan and Australia, and one less than 1994-5 and four less than 1993-4. Comparatively, the total number of one-day games during this period have gradually increased from 23 in 1993-4 to 28 in 1995-6.

The future doesn`t seem to hold anything promising in the way of a three-Test series, although optimistic attempts are being made to woo Australia here for one in July/August, and negotiations are going on for tours to South Africa and West Indies.

Unless there is an equitable distribution of Test matches within a certain time frame amongst the nine Test-playing nations, there is grave danger of countries like Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Zimbabwe being left to pick up the pieces after the top cricket playing nations have grabbed their quota.

Sri Lanka`s loss to Australia in the final Test at Adelaide did not help their cause as being worthy Test material. They had an opportunity of earning a honourable draw, even without captain Arjuna Ranatunga, Roshan Mahanama and key spinner Muthiah Muralitharan playing, but from a position of security, they lost their last seven wickets inside one and a half sessions, which gave Australia a clean sweep of the three Test series.

Sri Lanka`s exceptional double success (winning both Test and one-day series) in Pakistan followed by their victory in the Singer Champions trophy in Sharjah led to the unsavoury incidents that followed in Australia.

The ball tampering affair in the Perth Test, and the calling of Muralitharan for chucking in the second at Melbourne were all pre-planned attempts to take the mind away from cricket. These psychological tactics paid off handsomely for the home side who by these unfair methods which were quite alien to Sri Lanka, were able to retain their title as unofficial world champions of Test cricket, having wrested it from the West Indies in the Caribbean in 1994-5.

By adopting such tactics, what the Australians were not aware was that they were helping Sri Lanka in a different way. According to manager Duleep Mendis, such incidents only served to provide his players with a mental toughness which they had lacked over the years.

That new found sphere was made maximum use of during the Wills World Cup where Sri Lanka came off with a one hundred percent record winning all six games, including the final against Australia at Lahore in a showdown which all the players were eagerly looking forward to.

"Playing Australia in the final alone was enough to motivate the players,`` recalled Mendis.

Source :: Daily News (http.//www.lanka.net)