Colombo: Cut to the second Sri Lanka-India One-Day International last week. For the first time on this drab tour, it looked as if the visitors were in some bother. Chasing 231, they were down to 131/7, thanks to Akila Dananjay bringing forth his wedding celebrations to the stands of the Pallekele International Stadium.
Something strange happened thereafter. Upul Tharanga, whose captaincy is as uninspiring as a sloth searching for food, took Dananjay out of the attack. It was a surprising decision – Bhuvneshwar Kumar was trying hard to stay at the wicket with MS Dhoni, so why not bowl out the spinner who had bamboozled better batsmen before him? Well, the answer came in the form of Lasith Malinga, who was brought back into the attack.
In a parallel universe, where mankind has conquered the time factor and athletes don’t wither with age, this would have been a good choice. A struggling batting line-up, and you bring in a fearsome pacer, one of toe-crushing yorkers, and Lanka would have won that game in a canter. Sadly, that alternate paradigm is not a reality just yet and we exist in a universe where Dhoni reigns supreme when it comes to closing out cricket matches.
India, as such, were helped by this move to bring on Malinga. Consider the 30th over of their innings when the Dhoni-Bhuvi partnership was still in its infancy. Dhoni took three runs off the first two balls, then Malinga bowled three wides and two short balls that didn’t bother Kumar. Why? Because they were down in pace, a pitiful 132 kph. More importantly, there wasn’t one threatening delivery that looked like inducing a wicket – Malinga undid all of Dananjay’s good work.
Remember him in full grandeur? A brilliant limited-overs’ pacer, with an awkward, hard-to-pick action, and pinpoint accuracy, Malinga was the focal point of Sri Lanka’s heady rise in the shorter formats of the game. This is the man with three ODI hat-tricks, inclusive of a unique four-in-four feat against South Africa in 2007.
In a time-period dominated by the blades of Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene, let it be said here that Malinga was the focal point of Sri Lanka’s rise in ICC tournaments. Think of the 2007 and 2011 ODI World Cups, the 2009 and 2012 World T20s where Lanka made the finals, just falling short all those years, and then indeed revisit that 2014 tournament where he carried them one step further to victory.
Perhaps that imperious spell in the final of the 2014 World T20 in Dhaka is the easiest throwback to his glory days, especially in the Indian context. Even a thorough finisher like Yuvraj Singh just wasn’t able to get him away that evening. Today, the mood in the Indian dressing room has changed. Sample these words from Shikhar Dhawan, after he had strolled to his third hundred on the tour in the first ODI at Dambulla:
“He is a bit old now, and with time, I feel that his pace has gone down a bit too. That’s why we are able to attack him more, and as batsmen, that’s what we look at. This is natural though, because he has played so much cricket. It is just a cycle, life cycle.”
Through the years, Malinga has been like a monster truck, riding fast and furious on a turbo-charged engine. It is almost a transformer-persona, when you think of him morphing into a pace bowler with the USP of sturdy build (at least in the limited-overs’ formats), and the ability to deliver heavy payloads in intense situations.
He was the common trait through Lanka’s continued years of success at the biggest spectacles of international cricket. Now, like any heavily-used machinery, he is wasting away, the end of a cycle as Dhawan put it.
There is another cycle inherent herein, of Lanka’s bid for redemption. They have spent a lifetime searching for the next Muttiah Muralitharan, and now they are doing the same looking for the next Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene. It has impacted the current players in such a manner that their confidence looks shot at the moment, and this can be measured in the poor string of results against Zimbabwe and India.
The other consequence is immeasurable by certain standards. Whenever a team undergoes the nominal transitional phase, the least they can do is win at home or even put up a fight. That hasn’t happened with Lankan cricket, and it has led to a situation wherein different aspects of their on-field play are lacking a leader. There is nobody to show the way in batting, or fielding, even fitness to a degree given the spate of injuries.
Through the years, bowling was the one area where Lanka had a senior figurehead still going strong for them. Surprisingly enough, they handed him captaincy in the shortest format, whilst putting their money on Angelo Mathews elsewhere. Could Malinga have provided that leadership, one that would have possibly balanced this current traumatic period in Lankan cricket?
Former cricketer and commentator Russell Arnold said:
“For me, all those years ago, in the shorter formats, Malinga was the optimal choice. Now it is a little late and they have to make do with the players they have. As for him, we all know he is down in pace and down on fitness. He is not the bowler he was, but he is still better than most in Lankan cricket. The unfortunate bit is that he has not been able to be among the wickets, but once he finds his rhythm, he certainly has it in to him to push for another year or so. Maybe even the 2019 World Cup.”
At this juncture, a scene from the Dambulla ODI comes to mind. As India began their innings, and Rohit Sharma got ready to take strike, a section of the crowd sitting in the pavilion, broke into a jig. They were singing Malinga’s name, dancing to what was essentially a song that heralded the oncoming pacer.
They still love him here, and more importantly, have faith in him yet. For the sake of Lankan cricket then, it is a matter of how much fuel Malinga has got left in his tank.
