Sri Lanka turned early holocaust to end 2016 on landmark note licking Aussies, Zimbabwe
On a rebuilding curve from a holocaust by a veteran player drain holocaust that undermined the beginning of the year by away series losses to New Zealand and England to new fortunes on a youth blitz sweeping of Australia in a historic home series triumph followed by success in Zimbabwe brought back Sri Lanka in a remarkably magnificent comeback high ending the year 2016.
Indeed, Sri Lanka was looking down the barrel entering 2016 when New Zealand and England proved to be too much for the island nation driven in to new generation pastures by the retirement of frontline players. Devoid of longtime class performers on whose class acts its cricket thrust had thrived a decade long, Sri Lanka had naturally lost the base on which its winning game plan had hinged in making inroads in to the top bracket equation in all three forms of the game. Like any other cricket playing nation in teething times when the establishment consequently switched to its evolving youth base which though in contrast to the high tech modern academy concept countries like Australia, South Africa, India and England are highly ingrained in with Sri Lanka’s mechanism just beginning to pick up, it was quite a challenge the cricketing establishment namely Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) was braced with. What is more with the administrative arm of the game long undermined by interim governance was a debilitating multiple factor.
But that the country’s cricket at long last found fruition in the Maithripala Sirisena – Ranil Wickremasinghe ‘Yahapalanaya’ national government’s blessings to hold elections to elect office bearers from the cricket clubs at district and provincial level. The timely move leading to the people involved in the cricket periphery finding anointment to vote in the people of their choice to administer the game was a blessing in disguise. That it paved the way for one of the nation’s top administrators with a far sighted vision who like cricket captains boldly dares to take split decisions in the dynamic Thilanga Sumathipala to reenter to administer the game at the nerve center was indeed the fruits borne by this government’s commendable decision courtesy incumbent Sports Minister, Dayasiri Jayasekera to give the long sought green light the cricket infested local bodies and its populace had been yearning to put its cricket back on track.
A duly elected administration in office in the Thilanga Sumathipala headed administration with his able longtime lieutenant, an equally highly versed administration man Mohan De Silva as the SLC Secretary, the back in the saddle Sumathipala, who gave Sri Lankans the Dambulla Stadium during his last tenure in the 1990s, it was who got down to brass tacks to fill in the vacuums in the cricket skeleton and put Sri Lanka back on track. Hiring a foreign coach in next to no time in Gerald Ford among other expertise, Sumathipala ensured that the next generation talent got on the blocks. The rest is history.
While the young brigade saw a batting knight born in Kusal Mendis from Moratuwa who showed first glimpses of a new star on the horizon with some pleasing knocks in England, the lad in to his 21st year was quickly in to his element with the type of batting heroics that would put Sri Lanka on course for that epoch making 3-nil Test series drubbing woven around a mammoth 176 followed up by an 80 odd. It was the carpet for others to build on with young all-rounder Dhananjaya De Silva displaying pleasing technique to underwrite his passage as another game find around a ton and several other telling knocks that he translated in to the 4-1 ODI series triumph over the Aussies. There was also utility player Dilruwan Perera doing justice to the 30 plus age group with some fine all-round efforts. Thus Sri Lanka had found anointment in team blending carried to Zimbabwe notwithstanding the injury sidelining of the regular captain Angelo Mathews and vice captain Dinesh Chandimal with veteran spinner Rangana Herath, and the experienced Upul Tharanga filling in the captaincy voids respectively to take Sri Lanka on a sweeping triumphant crusade. Herath did carve a personal milestone in becoming the third bowler in Test cricket history to take five wicket hauls against all test playing countries to give his cricket career and country a tail-end sprinkling of glitter closing in on 2016. At the time of writing with the ongoing Boxing Day first Test in to its second day, the Sri Lankans, with Mathews back at the helm, are on a grueling tour in the South Africans backyard as the cricket is set to passage on to 2017. Indeed, Mathews and his charges can bark that Sri Lanka has reaped sufficiently including touching on a landmark back home in 2016.
-The opinions expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Sri Lanka Cricket-
By Srian Obeyesekere