Herath leads from the front to reach crowning moment in career
The short and stocky built Rangana Herath looks innocuous to the eye as to a class performer on the cricket stage. But put the ball in his hand or even a bat in his grip and the small man has indeed demonstrated what a winning streak he possesses. Ever since he made a fruity debut for Sri Lanka on September 22, 1999 with 3 wickets including the prize scalp of the then Aussie skipper Steve Waugh, it has been a telling Everest climb at age 21 Rangana Herath has certainly dwarfed size in roller-coaster fashion.
That in a 17 year career since then that Herath has risen monotonously to becoming modern cricket’s ICC No.2 bowler exemplifies the oozing talent of the orthodox left arm spinner with 351 Test wickets at an economy rate of 2.76 and strike rate of 60.7. If his series tally shot to a dizzy 24 wickets with 11 in the first test and 13 in the second in the two off affair versus Zimbabwe at Harare, what more a fitting stage than wearing the big captaincy mantle to serenade. If performance was one stature raising act of greatness, that Mudiyanselaghe Rangana Keerthi Bandara Herath reached the zenith of a personal milestone carrying the highest honour of leading his country as its 14th Test captain was certainly crowning champagne stuff to boot.
Here was a player who played second fiddle for years to Muttiah Muralitharan not because he wasn’t good enough, but because there was no room for two in the eleven when Murali was king with the ball. At one time in his career it looked that the ageing Herath might never come into the big equation of cementing a permanent place in the national team. But at long last where a fading dream did come true when Muralitharan quit the game some years ago paving the way for Herath, indeed the player hailing from Kurunegala did cling on to the opportunity with both arms. Since then it has been an incredulous Test cricket voyage for the former Maliyadeva College product. In his full comeback Herath wrote his name in letters of gold in bowling Sri Lanka to a historic first ever Test win over South Africa in South Africa with a match bag of 9 for 128 in 2011-’12. It was the turning moment in his career as the bowler went from strength to strength in adding to his career tally to challenging the world’s topmost bowlers around.
Touching gold in Zimbabwe in leading from the front has of course been the biggest hurrah for Rangana Herath. The captaincy was thrust in his hands in the eleventh hour in a crisis of injury to both regular captain Angelo Mathews and vice captain Dinesh Chandimal. But Herath rose to the situation very gamely stating that it was an honour to strive to lead his country to glory. And lead he did with the aplomb of a veteran. He little lacked in any area and displayed shrewd leadership tactics in taking the opposition by the scuff of their necks. His strongest asset was his bowling armoury as Herath boldly took the onus to open the bowling in a strangulation of Zimbabwe as the finally outcome of the 2-nil series triumph proved. What raised his stock from this latest anointment was leading a virtual young side to whom he lent the needed fire.
Significantly, when most players are at the thether of their careers in their late 30s, that Herath has on the contrary turned his career to reaching the sky high in performance is something for him to be proud about as well as his country and the cricketing establishment – Sri Lanka Cricket. His greatest asset has been his ability to pick wickets on any wicket maintaining a very lethal length that has also been his fortitude in the one-day circuit where Herath was a strong contributor to Sri Lanka emerging world T20 champions in 2014.
By Srian Obeyesekere
