Why Mahela Jayawardane should not open for SL

It's very understandable considering the continuous failure of contenders Kusal Perera, Upul Tharanga and latest one Niroshan Dickwella, that most fans, commentators calling for Mahela Jayawardane to open along with Dilshan. With Mahela having superior stats as an opener, it does look like a sensible move, but there is more to a successful batting unit's dynamic than super consistent openers.

Thriving with confidence

Key to having confident, daring openers is(and most people misses out on this point) is having a STRONG CORE in the batting line up. By core I mean the middle order from NO.3 to NO.6. It is this core strength that provide openers confidence to thrive at the top and the best way to groom youngsters as openers is to give them confidence they need, but assuring them that even if they fail, it will be compensated by a STRONG MIDDLE ORDER. That way it will take away the fear of failure from the equation instead of sending them the message of that their place will be taken by a senior middle order batsman if they fail.

Successful openers DO NOT necessarily guarantee big scores if the middle order is weak

Best example for this is when Marvan Atapattu and Sanath Jayasuriya were opening in 2000s and Mahela and Sangakkara were yet to settle in the line up, Sri Lanka did not necessarily post big scores, even though Jayasuriya-Atapattu combination is all time 4th in the list of most successful openers in the world. Then take a look at 2005, 2006, 2007 Sri Lanka were posting better, bigger scores more consistently.Why? Four reasons: Mahela, Sanga, Dilshan, Arnold in the middle order. Comparisons of India in 2000s when Tendulkar-Ganguly opened and India of beyond 2008(when Yuvraj, Raina, Dhoni in the middle order) is a very good example of this too. Mahela's move to the top will leave the middle order considerably weak.

If there is no one to capitalize on the openers' start, that good start will mean very little.

When you play your trump card early...

As we all know Mahela has opened before for Sri Lanka and with GREAT SUCCESS too, but with all that success most missed out on a key characteristic. Take the two series Mahela did very well as an opener: Commenwealth Bank Series 2012 and ICC World T20 2012. Notice that there were HARDLY any worthy contributions from the middle order in BOTH series, and more precariously when Mahela failed, incidentally in the FINALS of both tournaments, there was no one in the MIDDLE ORDER to arrest the slide and salvage the innings.

Best instance is the on going India vs Sri Lanka ODIs, every time the flood gates were opened, Mahela was there to settle the tide and lead the recovery; which resulted in making him the highest run scorer for Sri Lanka in the series.

Both openers DO NOT need to be in super touch to run a successful campaign

There is bit of an urban legend that Jayasuriya-Kaluwitharana were highly successful during ICC World Cup 1996. Fact of the matter is it was only Jayasuriya wrecking havoc while Kaluwitharana had a quite an ordinary tournament by his own standards(although he was the main wrecker during the Benson&Hedges series just before world cup)

Another famous example is Australia's campaign in the ICC World Cup in 2007. Adam Gilchrist was woefully out touch throughout the tournament UNTIL he came good in the final and blasted the Sri Lankan attack to pieces.Until then Australia's batting core of Ponting, Hussey, Symonds (along with the other opener Mathew Hayden) covered for Gilchrist until he found his grove. What they DID NOT DO is ask PONTING or HUSSEY to OPEN in PLACE of Gilchrist.

Current situation....

Right now Sri Lanka's more established opener Thilakaratne Dilshan averages in 38s which is a more than decent average for an opener(only behind Sanga and Mathews). So there is no need to hit panic stations just because Dilshan's partner at other end keeps flopping just as long as Dilshan holds steady.

Upul Tharanga usually comes up with a superlative knock after horribly failing in 10 to 12 innings and in Kusal Perera's case he will make 15ball 30s which will ease off the pressure(he needs to get pass the 1st over though) and make a 50+ score at pace in every 10 games. Either of them will be good enough as long as Dilshan is stable and stay true to his career average.

However the most important factor as I mentioned earlier is the strength of the CORE of the batting unit. In Sanga, Mahela, Mathews and Thirimanne hitting back-to-back Fifties vs India looks pretty settled. To strengthen it further, either Chandimal or Priyanjan has to come good. With that batting line Sri Lanka can comfortably post 250+ scores more often than not, and if the nature of the Australian/New Zealand pitches "mysteriously" change (like it did in England during the Champions Trophy 2013), Sri Lanka have the bowling attack to defend 260-270.

Since this is against the current popular belief(most are in favor of Mahela opening), expecting a bit of backlash against this thought process. Comments are welcome.

[Sanga vs Mahela] 2.0

Photo Credit: www.thearmchaircritic.cu.cc

Disclaimer: This post is not to devalue, desrespect or undermine Kumar Sangakkara and his achievements. It is just to support a point about Mahela Jayawardane I have stood by for some time. The fact remains Kumar Sangakkara is and will be for some time the most successful and accomplished batsman Sri Lanka has ever produced.

Although there is next to nothing that we can take from the on going India vs Sri Lanka ODIs, there is an important and somewhat rare feat for Sri Lanka among all the disappointment. How often do we get to see Kumar Sangakkara out-performed by another Sri Lankan batsman? Given Sanga's consistency over the last few years, that is extremely rare. And the reason is indirectly connected to a point I made about Mahela Jayawardane in numerous sites,blogs,comments etc.

In number of attempts to determine who is the best batsman produced by Sri Lanka(fans are probably exhausted by all the back-and-forth stuff) I have stood by the statement:

"...Mahela is the type of batsman who would wake up 9 a.m. and go on to score a century that afternoon without bothering with the nets. On the other hand Sanga is the type of batsman who would wake up at 6 a.m. hit hundread deliveries from the bowling machine in the nets and then go on to score a century that afternoon..."

While I was inspecting hammering Sri Lanka were receiving  in the current ODI series I realized what better proof than this series to support my above conclusion about Sanga vs Mahela!?

Incidentally Sri Lanka went through minimum preparation just days before the start of this tour and that DID NOT go down well with Sanga at all, and typically wasn't shy to share his displeasure about lack of time for proper preparation, and on que Sanga did not seem his usual assured self in the middle in any of the three ODIs he played in.

On the other hand Mahela has already ended up as the leading run scorer for Sri Lanka in this series and looks to be in his sublime best.

The reason? Sanga more or less relies on HARD WORK, while Mahela counts on the RAW TALENT and his instincts.

While not undermining Sanga, his achievement and his service to Sri Lanka, it's important to keep in mind that crisis does not present itself with prior notice! and when it does; it's always nice to have bloke who can get straight down to work, right after he get off the bed i.e. Mahela...

Food for thought: Imagine what could've been achieved if Mahela had the work ethic of Sanga!

Sri Lankans dominate the ICC Test XI of the Year

Three Sri Lankans have made it to the ICC Test Team of the Year -2014 after some stellar performances resulting in one of the most successful years in Sri Lankan Test cricket. As an added honour current Sri Lankan Test Captain has been chosen to lead the ICC Test XI, which features some of the heavy weights of the world cricket today:

David Warner (Aus)

Kane Williamson (NZ)

Kumar Sangakkara (SL)

AB de Villiers (SA)

Joe Root (Eng)

Angelo Mathews (SL) (captain)

Mitchell Johnson (Aus)

Stuart Broad (Eng)

Dale Steyn (SA)

Rangana Herath (SL)

Tim Southee (NZ)

Ross Taylor (NZ) (12^th man)

Another interesting fact is there is not a single player from the Indian team which is considered a superpower in cricket these days. This is reflection of how poor the Indians have fared in Test cricket especially overseas, on the other hand how well the Sri Lankans have done in their Test assignments away from home. Angelo Mathews and Kumar Sangakkara are also nominated for the ICC awards; Test Cricketer of the Year and Sir Garfield Sobers Award for the Cricketer of the Year.

The Mystery of Mystery Within: CHUCKING & ICC

First off, to clear the barrels let's look at what modern day "chucking" is. Most are under the impression that chucking is bowling with a 'bent' arm, which is only a half-truth. Chucking does involve bending of arm at elbow, but in order to conclude that a bowler is 'chucking', he/she HAS to "straighten" the (once bent) arm at the point of release. The degree of angle between this bent arm and the straightened arm is called the flex. According to contemporary rules this flex needs to be within 15 degrees. So technically a bowler CAN bowl with a bent arm and not straighten it at the point of release, and he/she IS STILL bowling within the rules of the game. Muttiah Muralitharan's case is similar to this scenario as his arm is deformed at birth and does not straighten fully at any point.

Mystery within the closed doors of ICC labs

According to the ICC recent crackdown on chucking is taking place under supervision of two on-field umpires and the 3rd umpire and match referee. The mechanism they are using to conclude and report bowlers as acknowledged by the ICC is 2D imagery and video, and of course the naked eye for obvious cases. This is fine on field,  but the disturbing fact is that in the recent fall out of ICC with University of Western Australia(the place that used to be the Mecca for testing suspect actions), it has come to light in the new ICC labs at Cardiff and Brisbane they are using same ‘layman’s techniques to test the bowlers according to Prof. Jacqueline Alderson of University of Western Australia there are some serious concerns about the new methods adopted by the  new ICC labs:

• The method of judging the moment of ball release - and whether this could disadvantage spin bowlers
• The repercussions of placing markers in different places
• The influence of both elbow 'flexion' and 'extension'
• The continued use of 2D imagery in testing

One of most essential points Prof. Alderson stresses is that new and inexperienced researchers have changed video frame that they consider as the release point of the ball. As aforementioned in the first paragraph, the ‘release point’ decides whether the bowler chucks or not, as opposed to just the ‘bent arm’.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci-icc/content/story/789319.html

The questions remains why did ICC want to have their own labs to test the bowlers? Why did they steal the research of UWA in order to start their own labs? Why they were not satisfied with the previous work of UWA?

ICC's reluctance to publish the actual procedure they follow behind the close doors of their labs gives huge credibility to all the above questions. As former Pakistan captain Rameez Raja recently questioned: why wouldn't the ICC want to make the process transparent? After-all isn't the sole purpose of this recent crackdown(according to ICC itself) to 'clean up' cricket?

An interesting under current that is making waves is the school of thought that ICC wanted to re-route the UWA’s income of testing bowlers to their own ICC accounts. The labs under the ICC do not provide services for free just like the UWA did in the past. Judging by the recent re-structuring of ICC, it will be foolish to think that the ‘mission control’ of ICC would pass on an opportunity to increase their revenue. Would the cricket boards around the world send all their suspect action bowlers to be cleared by ICC labs? Would it go down as far as private academies sending their players to be cleared? Only the time will tell.

Mystery of reporting

It’s very obvious that Australia and England are no fans of mystery spin, and to be fair to them majority of mystery spinners at present comes with the done package of the ‘bent arm’. So they decided to have a level playing field and call everyone without ‘discrimination’ ( or so they claim).

May be it is true(the without discrimination part) as it is, India decided to rest a bowler who didn’t even play in all of their Test matches this season for the now defunct West Indies ODIs. So what was the reason behind the ‘resting’ a bowler who didn’t even bear the brunt as a spearhead of his bowling attack. Could it be as simple as follows:

Bent arm of Ashwin

Straightened arm of Ashwin

As the 2D frames above indicate (the way ICC now use to test the bowlers) R. Ashwin clearly BENDS his arm in the delivery stride and STRAIGHTENS it at the point of release. Now the mystery is why the ICC umpires fail to see it if they manage to spot the ‘bend’ even in a bowler such as Mohammed Hafeez whose ‘bent arm’ is barely visible to the naked eye.

Was it really the ‘rest’ Ashwin needed during the ODIs or was it ‘protection’ he needed with a major ICC tournament around the corner?

It seems the “mystery” is no longer a feature limited to spinners but also a feature of newly structured ICC’s “modus operandi” ……

Facing the Hurricane Sanath.... even the best was not spared..

South Africa were touring Sri Lanka in the 2006-07 cricket season. 1st Test was won by Sri Lanka handsomely on the back of the record breaking partnership of Sangakkara and Jayawardane. However Proteas made a decent comeback in the 2nd Test at P.Sara Oval, giving Sri Lanka a 4th innings target of 351. Sri Lanka had never chased a target that steep before home or away. What they needed was a rapid start to stun the South African bowling attack comprising; Shaun Pollock, Makhaya Ntini, Andre Hall and Dale Steyn. And Sanath Jayasuriya obliged...

Ashwell Prince then Proteas' skipper, recently in an interview revealed what he experienced in that shocking opening assault:

"...Jayasuriya was opening, and hitting it to all parts. Dale Steyn was being carved over point, and he came up to me and said: "I can't bowl at him. I don't know where to bowl." Obviously, I hadn't captained a lot, and I thought: "What am I going to do here?" He's supposed to be the main strike bowler, even though he was young at the time. I had to take him off, because he wasn't confident in landing it where he could just bowl a dot ball - forget about taking a wicket..."

- www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/784389.html

and here is why....:

Sanath Jayasuriya in his final Test innings

Sanath in his last Test innings taking James Anderson apart....

ATTENTION: Atapattu, Jayawardane, Sangakkara

After 15 years Sri Lanka Cricket has rolled the dice and betting on a local as the Head coach of the national cricket team. Last time the team had a local coach, does not bring greatest memories. Although, then coach; Roy Dias had little to do with the ugly team politics which made sure of the Sri Lanka's worst World Cup campaign after peaking in 1996, it did no favors to the idea of handing over the reins to local coaches. The inception of school of thoughts: "local coaches create factions within the team" took place successfully.(again this was not true since factions were created due to Ranatunga not getting the team he asked for & not because of Roy Dias).

This time around, when Marvan Atapattu is appointed as the full time head coach, there is even something more to support the afore mentioned school of thoughts: Since Atapattu has played in the team with Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene;there will be even more fuel for fire of team politics... fair enough. There is always an element of doubt until it is done and dusted, but it shouldn't be forgotten that according to the same doubters Sangakkara and Jayawardane should NOT be playing today as Sanath Jayasuriya became the Chairman of Selectors(for well known reasons). The reality is they still are playing and probably playing best cricket in their careers. So much for the element of doubt then..

Challenges

As parties of a "Sri Lankan" cricket team, Atapattu,Jayawardane and Sangkkara WILL NOT face the greatest challenges on  the field from their counterparts from other teams.NO. All three of them will face the greatest challenges from within Sri Lanka. More specifically from the 'bankcrupt' journalists + the 'gossip' sites who will sell their mothers for cheap publicity for their so called media outlets.
Most recent and hilarious examples are the last years' news reports(with no source) about the Sri Lanka's bowling coach; Chaminda Vaas. According to these so called 'journalists' there was a serious rift between Vaas and spearhead Lasith Malinga and all hell was ready to break loose(which included headlines; Malinga ready to retire from interantional cricket ;Vaas considering resignation)
After those so called 'news reports'(with NO source) followed probably the most successfull year of Sri Lankan cricket history.So God Bless those 'sourceless' reports and the 'journos'.

Have no doubts they WILL BE at it again,probably with a catchy headline like;  'Round 2:Atapattu vs Mahela/Sanga' and admittedly some fans will buy it, just like they bought: Sanath vs Sanga, Vaas vs Malinga earlier.
However it(fans buying that rubbish) will be not as significant as Atapattu,Jayawardene and Sangakkara buying into those news reports/gossip etc, but fortunately judging from the signs thus far, there is more than reason to believe that all three of them know better and are highly professional about their jobs and duties. Therefore there is very little doubt that these three ICONs of Sri Lankan cricket will excel in each others company..

Godspeed Gentlemen... #2015

On a side note: there will always be haters; who will be lining up right about now to declare it was Atapattu's fault if (God forbid)Sri Lanka have an ordinary World Cup campaign next year and if Sri Lanka  have even a slightly successful campaign they will declare it was just 'seniors pulling their weight'(am not saying they are not,they are doing great actually) and nothing to do with Atapattu as they've been saying in the last two months.

Champions... Dream against odds...

Champions... Dream against odds... from Uppercut on Vimeo.

ICC crackdown on chucking: Proper testing or Witch-hunt sponsored by Big 3?

After Pakistan’s bowling spearhead Saeed Ajmal became the latest bowler to be banned after undergoing biomechanical tests at one of the new ‘ICC preferred’  labs, it is clear now ICC is cracking down on ‘bent arms’ and means business. Up to date five international bowlers have been called for suspect action: Shillingford(WI), Williamson(NZ), Senanayake(SL) , Gazi(BAN), Utseya(ZIM) and Ajmal(PAK), (in an interesting coincidence a certain match official was part of reporting of 4 of those bowlers).

None of the above bowlers can be termed as new comers in the cricket scene, as they’ve been playing cricket at international level for some time now, some even were reported earlier in their careers and cleared. So what changed? The Big 3 happened. It’s obvious now, that after the shift of powers at ICC, they have taken firm decisions on ‘bent arms’. While England and Australia were never fans of ‘doosras’ or mystery spin, India did allow some liberty. So did India get ‘out-voted’ within the power group; 2 to 1? Or did India agree to it as long as their ‘best interests’ kept untouched?

And ‘best interests’ are not confined to monetary assets, but extends right up to their ‘contractual obligations’ in other words ‘cricketers’.

While acknowledging the fact that all six recently reported bowlers do have jerks in their elbows; curiously ICC’s ‘detecting mechanism’ has failed to get its scope adjusted on two star bowlers namely; Sunil Narine(WI) and Ravi Ashwin(IND). Both are new-breed bowlers who rely on mystery to get their scalps and both are highly successful at top level as well. What’s more  I fail to see any aspect in their bowling actions different from their reported counterparts; Shillingford, Williamson, Senanayake, Gazi

      

In fact Ravi Ashwin was even brave enough to acknowledge and go on record saying that he is actually trying to gain advantage by making full use of ‘allowance of flex’ by ICC:

Ashwin bowling in Asia Cup 2014

“…..I'd never bowled in full-sleeves before. So I wanted to see how it would feel. And I just wanted to see if you can get more revs on the ball, if you can do a little bit with your elbow, as much as, that is. That's what it was all about. You can get a lot of advantage with these things. So why should I lag behind if someone else is getting a competitive edge?......"                                                                                        -espncricinfo: www.espncricinfo.com/india/content/story/732475.html

 

So what’s stopping ICC’s watchdog from making a move on these two top level ‘mystery bowlers’? This brings us back to India’s ‘best interests’. Both Ashwin and Narine are considered as highly integral parts of respective IPL franchises Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders. In other words ‘IPL darlings’

 So does a lucrative IPL deal now guarantee ‘chucking immunity’ among many other perks? making a bowler feel so safe, that he comes out openly saying that he s going to push the limits??

 University of Western Australia

Another interesting fact that got lost in the recent ‘suspect action’ saga is the curious case of University of Western Australia. Once the centre for biomechanical testing for suspect action bowlers, now being methodically shunned by ICC completely. Another change of heart after the power shift of Big 3? University of Western Australia was involved in testing and clearing both Muralitharan and Ajmal(when he was first reported). Now ICC prefers or ‘recommends’ the labs at Cardiff and Brisbane, and the latest one will be located in India. So what made ICC move on from University of WA? Were they not satisfied with their testing methods? Were they too lenient? 

Interestingly Professor Jacqueline Alderson of University of Western Australia had this to say about current testing methods used by labs at Cardiff and Brisbane:

“………Any scientific procedure that can impact on the ability of a player to play the game has to be an independent process and the procedures by which those decisions are made must be open to peer review, and must be available to bowlers and their boards to ensure that process is open and fair. I don’t think it’s in the best interests of cricket……..”

www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/uni-of-wa-questions-independence-of-crickets-chucking-procedures-20140813-103qh8.html

 

According to Prof. Alderson, the current testing procedures are not as transparent as it used to be in University of WA. As smaller the differences may be(according to ICC) between testing methods of new ICC labs and University of WA, we as fans and outsiders are left with questions like: What of the bowlers who were tested and cleared at University of WA? And crusaders against chucking such as Martin Crowe believing and insisting that likes of Murali was ‘lucky’ to avoid the new ICC testing labs….. Or is this all part of a freak-child as a result of an illegitimate power-grab?

Sanath Jayasuriya | The Champion

The most accomplished all-rounder to have played One Day International Cricket............

Angelo Mathews' epic 160 vs England at Headingley,2014