London: Kumar Sangakkara has been in red-hot form for Surrey, at whose home ground, the Oval, Sri Lanka will take on India in their bid to stay alive in the Champions Trophy. With Angelo Mathews injured early in the tournament, Upul Tharanga had to take the reins, and when he did, he was promptly banned for Sri Lanka’s shockingly low over rate.
Sri Lanka were a full 37 minutes over the time allotted to them to bowl 50 overs, Lasith Malinga being the worst offender, taking as long as seven minutes to complete an over. Mathews, who was fit to play even if he could not bowl, called Sri Lanka’s tardiness “pathetic” and promised that “it would never happen again.”
It’s not a surprise then, that a lighthearted question about recalling Sangakkara for one final flourish in Sri Lanka’s time of need was met with an earnest answer. “I always ask him that. Even a couple of days ago I was asking him, can you come and play for us in this game? He’s been in absolutely brilliant form,” said Mathews with a cheeky smile. “He’s had a dream career and it’s unfortunate that he doesn’t play for us any more. He’s spoken to all of us about this ground. We can’t have him, but it’s always tempting to call him back.”
If Sri Lanka’s challenge is finding the right players to get on the park, India has the opposite issue. To start with, Virat Kohli was forced to take the tough call of leaving R Ashwin out of the eleven for the match against Pakistan. But, apparently, this went down quite well in the Indian dressing-room.
“Ashwin is a high class bowler. Everyone knows that. And he’s very professional as well. He understood the dynamic of the side that we picked in the last game, and he was absolutely fine with it. He told me, I support you whatever you want to do. That’s always been our equation,” said Kohli. “In the case where team selection and all these things come into play, he’s very professional. He understands what the team demands. It’s a very nice thing and a beautiful thing about him that he always puts the team first. He was the first guy who said, I have no problems with the kind of combination you’re going in with.”
To leave Ashwin out may have been not too troublesome, but promoting Hardik Pandya ahead of Mahendra Singh Dhoni may not have gone down too well but for the monstrous sixes that Pandya muscled. Was it hard for captain Kohli to take that course of action?
“It was not hard at all. As I said, it’s very hard for people looking from the outside, but the kind of understanding we have within the team, it’s difficult to explain. We have a lot of respect among the players and trust among the players,” said Kohli. “There’s no issues whatsoever – I mean, I’m not saying this because I want to make it sound good, but if you guys ever end up experiencing that team environment, you’ll understand what I’m saying, that there’s absolutely transparency – total transparency, and everyone respects and understands what we decide to do as a team. I think that’s a beautiful thing to have, and all the guys, as I said, trust each other and believe in each other.”
Kohli has one further borderline call to make, and that was leaving Mohammad Shami out. India’s captain admitted that he had to resist the temptation to bring the most incisive quick bowler he has in the mix simply because there were more reliable tried and tested options.
“Shami hasn’t played 50-over cricket for a long time. I’m glad he bowled really well in the first few practice games, but I felt that Umesh, Bhuvi, and Bumrah had much more match practice and the performances to back that up in the last few series we played. A bowler like Shami will always be in your setup because he’s the sort of guy that can win you games in any form of cricket,” said Kohli, while conceding that it may be a while yet before Shami is at his best. “Yeah, he’s feeling his way back into the groove, and he’s certainly an asset. If, God forbid, something happens to someone, then we already have another guy who’s ready to strike and has proven himself. This just shows our bench strength.”
Mathews may look wistfully at the Indian dressing-room, after the toss, for the quality of players sitting out is scary. Ashwin, Ajinkya Rahane, Mohammad Shami and Dinesh Karthik are all serious cricketers. Sri Lanka would take any of them in a heartbeat.
But while Kohli might be ruthless in picking his teams, he showed that he was even more so when it came to dealing with his friends in the media. Upon arriving at the indoor nets at the Oval to address his pre-match press conference, Kohli was taken aback to see India’s reporters enjoying an impromptu net session. “I would love to see my bowlers going at you lot, and then I would sit back and write about how well you all did.”
Thankfully, things did not come to such a grave pass.