Chandimal a faith restoring, team redeeming ton of character
It was a character defining Test for Dinesh Chandimal in the ongoing second Test against Bangladesh at the P. Saravanamuththu Stadium. His unbeaten 138 off 300 balls spanning 10 boundaries and a six was the salvaging cornerstone of Sri Lanka’s first innings total of 338 at the P. Sravanamuthuthu Stadium. Converting a gloomy situation on the opening day to taking his team to safety as wickets tumbled.
There was Sri Lanka with the back to the wall as Bangladesh trailing 1-nil put the skids sending back the cream of the batting to the pavilion. 35 for 3 and 70 for 4 with Asela Gunaratne falling for 13 after Tharanga, Karunaratne and Mendis had perished; the latter stumped in a dancing down the wicket stroke he missed. Chandimal had closed on day one unbeaten on 90. Translating the opening session of the second day in a 55-run 8th wicket alliance with skipper Rangana Herath was the ultimate fruition in going past the 100-run personal milestone for his eighth Test ton.
Looking back on day one proceedings, Sri Lanka, deciding to bat on the luck of the toss, was in the dumps, and it required the type of repairing that a specialist batsman could do. That the 27-year old Chandimal did have to brave the odds and being axed during the ODI series in South Africa was certainly a weighing down factor that would make ordinary souls flinch.
In that backdrop, Dinesh Chandimal rising sturdily in calculated batsman ship that demanded the character of putting his head down to the situation was defining of a truly Test worthy knock as he finished the day on 90. The four sparse boundaries did best illustrate that fact of a batsman who put his head down to meet the team cause in batting out the threatening storm that the Bangladesh bowlers had reeled out.
In recent years, Chandimal has self admittedly worked out his batting to meet the team requirement as he once confided in me in an interview, and do just that did the right hander in a just over 200-ball knock; a knock that first calmed the threatening Bangladesh storm with the ball that his willow thereafter blunted to a point of run gathering to take Sri Lanka from a sense of insecurity to getting back in the game.
He did find a good ally in the recalled Dhananjaya de Silva who made 34 before De Silva went for a very poor shot cross batting with bat nowhere near ball to have his stumps disturbed. Chandimal also found support from Niroshan Dickwella who made 34 in a 44-run sixth wicket partnership and again from skipper Rangana Herath unbeaten on 24 in an unfinished 54-run alliance as Sri Lanka ended the day on 249 for 7 wickets. That he went on to switch gears on day two to going the distance was indeed great stuff. What a comeback in century style.
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-
