Suranga Lakmal – a find in art of swing bowling
Swing bowling is an art when perfected to good measure is a thing of beauty to watch! The flying action, the foot rotation, and above all the two arms that dictate that final fling; one fronted up lending leverage to the delivery arm. Essentially the feet-arm, hip coordination as the swiveling chest as much overly perfects the delivery.
Indeed, swing and out swing have down the years of the over century long game of ball versus bat decorated it in the science of fast bowling in a host of great names like Australia’s Ray Lindwall, Allan Davidson, Dennis Lillee to England’s Fred Trueman, Pakistan’s Imran Khan and Wasim Akram, New Zealand’s Sir Richard Hadlee, India’s Kapil Dev, and our own Chaminda Vaas and Nuwan Kulasekera, and of course, a Sri Lankan artist before him in Rumesh Ratnayake in the early years when Sri Lanka gained Test status. If it is the spectators delight to watch wickets go cart wheeling and amazing catches grabbed of deliveries hurled at breakneck speed, indeed they owe it to those game specialists in the art who have fine tuned fast bowling in to a devastatingly great art in this much loved sport.
In such a perspective, that Sri Lanka has in its fold a new discovery in the rhythmic Suranga Lakmal who swings the ball to good effect generating bounce buying wickets at a juncture the island nation is on a rebuilding curve of a new generation of cricketers in the wake of a wave of senior player retirements, is certainly heart warming for the Sri Lankan cricket establishment and the country at large. Since the retirement of Vaas some years ago, the fine-comb for specialists in the art of swing bowling has been on.
A dime a dozen did raise their hands with conspicuously the left Chamara Welagedera, and right arm Farveez Maharoof kindling much interest for their ability to generate the ball either way. Sadly, both fell on the wayside with Welegedera, of whom much was expected, and who made a fantastic 4-wicket debut playing alongside Vaas, failing to live up to expectations; and as much the athletic Maharoof, who was compared to Wasim Akram also evaporating. Therefore, the arrival of the 6’ 2” tall 29-year old Suranga Lakmal, a product from down South Matara, who debuted in Test cricket in 2010 and in ODIs a year before that, who has begun to reap the rich rewards of frontline wickets in an art where some grovel in the dust to strike gold in the harsh grinds of fast bowling, is a thing of beauty for Sri Lankans to feast it. Perhaps, that Lakmal’s meteoric ascendancy has been witnessed in Sri Lanka’s ongoing tour of South Africa in a lost cause of the first two Test matches, is the high point that the Sri Lankan camp could smile about, and of course, Lakmal at the time of writing. His 5 for 65 in the first innings of the first test was a significant act having accounted for the South African top order including the prize wicket of Hashim Amla was absorbing stuff.
For the record, regrettably, the Sri Lankan batsmen threw away a grand opportunity their pace bowling colleague had created in restricting the opposition to 286. In the second test too he did measure in a 5-wickt haul in the second innings once again dismissing star batsman Amla having prized out both openers in the first essay. Encouragingly for the Sri Lankan camp, and indeed for the future of the island nation’s cricket is the fact that Suranga Lakmal has perfected in accounting for top order batsmen which is what captain’s ask for from their frontline bowlers. Significantly, he has used his height and lithe athletic build to good effect in buying wickets. His success is best reflected by Lakmal galloping from the 60th spot to 30th in the ICC fast bowler rankings. He has a fair 39 wickets from 79 Test matches averaging 44.07 at an economy rate of 3.30 , and 75 ODI wickets from 54 matches averaging 20.60 and economy rate of 5.46.
By Srian Obeyesekere
-The opinions expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Sri Lanka Cricket-
