Arjuna Ranatunga is always one who came up as an abrasive personality, one who didn’t care a damn about reputations and definitely one who spoke his mind without worrying about the repercussions. Most importantly, unlike some of his ilk, he usually hit the nail on its head.
Sri Lanka V Australia 2nd Test Day 1: Sri Lanka Bowled Out For 174
Former Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga’s prophecy that the current Sri Lankan side is not focussed enough to play Test match rang true when Sri Lanka were bowled out for 174 on the first day of the second Test against Australia.
So earlier when he put the blame of Sri Lanka’s performance, both in England and then in the first Test at Galle, on the IPL, one got thinking if not totally agreed with him.
Sri Lanka’s abysmal batting on the first day of the second Test today has sealed the deal for me. The Lankans were bowled out for 174 on a track that barely had too much on it for either pace or the spin, thanks to their inability to restrain themselves from fishing outside the off, driving on the up or sweeping very early.
At least three of the top six batsmen got out to strokes that would have suited the limited overs format of the game more.
Mahela Jayawardene went as hard at the ball as Abhinav Mukund did in the recent Tests against England and nicked it to gully; Kumar Sangakkara drove an innocuous delivery from the rarest of rare bowlers, Michael Hussey, on the up and afforded a simple catch to the short extra-cover in front of the batsman and the lack of patience from Prasanna Jayawardene led to his downfall, just two overs into his innings.
Later, Angelo Mathews looked well set on 58 but it took Mitchell Johnson to crank down his pace a little for the batsman to get tempted into throwing the bat at the ball. He only edged it to the wicket-keeper in the process.
For a team playing on pitches that suit them, low, slow and easier to bat on, Sri Lanka have now been bowled for 105 and 174 in the first innings of the two games. It is early days in the Test match obviously, and Sri Lanka may come back in the second innings, but what is a tad more obvious is that the art of batting in Test matches, through the process of building the innings is steadily giving way to poor techniques in the disguise of aggressive strokeplay.
Ranatunga does not seem too off the mark then as he says, “I’m not really sure if (Sri Lanka) are focused enough to play the longer version. I am very disappointed with the commitment of most of the players; in particular I am really worried about a couple of the batsmen and their commitment to the longer version of the game.”
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