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Journalism of Courage
Roger Wijesuriya’s Cricinfo profile page describes him as someone with “a claim to being the most toothless bowler in Test history”. With a bowling average of 294, it’s plausible the former left-arm spinner, who is interestingly now Sri Lanka’s spin bowling coach, must have been used to such questions as — to put it crassly — “What are you doing here?”
Which was more or less what a rather direct journalist, who wanted to know why Angelo Mathews didn’t show up for the pre-match press conference, ended up asking him. The mild-mannered Wijesuriya was left half-stunned for a moment, but quickly gathered himself and bent forward to speak into the microphone. At which point the visiting team’s manager Michael de Zoysa interjected and told the journalist that it was Sri Lanka’s prerogative to decide whom to send for the media session.
A couple of questions along the usual what-ails-the-team theme followed, and Wijesuriya defended the rather indefensible performance by the visitors while also exuding confidence that they will get their act together soon. The session was then over. As Wijesuriya and de Zoysa headed towards the nets and the journalists rushed to the adjacent hall where a sumptuous lunch was being served by the Hyderabad Cricket Association, one chewed over that question wondering if it — inadvertently and allegorically — summed up the series so far and the sentiments around it.
Consider this. Take captain Angelo Mathews for the Sri Lanka that we have seen in 2014 — before the India series, that is — a team which has a ridiculously good combined win-loss (W/L) ratio of 2.8 this year (India’s is 1.2). Let’s also assume Wijesuriya represents this current side which has gone down 2-0 in the series without so much as a fight. While we are at it, let’s replace, too, the journalist in question with everyone who has cared to follow this series. Moreover, for a moment, think the presser is the series. And now pose that query again. It will be something like this: “What is this bunch we don’t identify with doing here? And where is the real Sri Lankan team?”
When the West Indies pulled out of the India tour and Sri Lanka agreed to fill in, it promised to be an interesting duel. Sri Lanka have been the best all-round team of the year, alongside arguably South Africa. Both teams have won at home and away, and across formats. And only South Africa have defeated Sri Lanka in a bilateral series this year. The Proteas, however, have an inferior combined W/L ratio of 2.0.
In between, Sri Lanka also won the fifty-over Asia Cup (where India finished third). And as the marketing machine selling India vs Sri Lanka pointed out, it was also the World Champions (50-over) vs the World Champions (T20) — in 2014, Sri Lanka finally ended world-title dry spell by beating India no less.
For such a team’s captain, therefore, the manner of the twin defeats in Cuttack and Ahmedabad, expected though they were as the visitors had come under-prepared, was unpalatable. After the second match at Motera, where Sri Lanka lost with plenty to spare despite having put 274 on the scoreboard, Mathews was unsparing in his self-assessment.
“I think we’re slowly getting better, but I’m disappointed and embarrassed by the fact that we were not competitive enough against the Indians,” he said. “They thrashed us in the first ODI and also here.”
Mathews has been a rare bright spot for his team. With a 92 in the last game, he took his personal tally to 838 this year, the most any batsman has accumulated in ODIs this year. The only other Sri Lankan batsman to have scored a fifty in this series is Kumar Sangakkara. The Indians, by contrast, have cracked three hundreds. But it’s not their batting that is failing Sri Lanka. It’s their bowling attack.
As Mathews admitted: “We don’t have a few of our best bowlers here – Lasith Malinga, Rangana Herath, Suranga Lakmal, Sachithra Senanayake. But that’s not an excuse, because we are playing international level, so we have to try and do well when we have the opportunity.”
It could be argued that Sri Lanka are being process-oriented in the series rather than focusing on results and that they will be back to their best before the World Cup Down Under. But what may frustrate them is that their rivals India are also fine-tuning for the big one while also winning along the way. The hosts are being in the process of becoming ruthlessly result driven.
Ruthless Indians
“What we are trying to achieve is being ruthless rather than letting the situations be. That’s the kind of hunger and vision that we are trying to instill in this team,” Virat Kohli said on Saturday. “Every game we play, we want to be ruthless.” It is in line with the philosophy that he outlined the other day, that India are taking their every outing as a final match.
Sunday’s game is indeed a do-or-die one, but not for India. Should they lose in Hyderabad, Sri Lanka will lose the series. In which case, for the final two games, they may be left with this nagging question: “What are we doing here?”
Live on Star Sports 1 & 3; 1.30 pm
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