WHEN you saw how the Indian spinners Kumble and Harbhajan demolished the South Africans in their second one-day encounter in South Africa, one is convinced that the way to beat the opposition, away from home, is to rely on your inherent strength and not look for new weapons, that may be difficult to cultivate. Sub-continent teams, particularly India and Sri Lanka, have overcome the opposition with their spinners and to my mind that is the way to do. Your main form of attack should be spin and at the same time you must develop your quick bowlers on a long term basis.
The Indians had Mankad and Gupte who were masters in their trade, in the years gone by, and in the not too distant past, India had brilliant spinners who have been compared with the all-time greats such as Bishan Bedi, Venkataraghavan, Prasanna and Chandrasekhar.
All these bowlers proved too good for the opposition and enabled India to hold their own, wherever they had played.
The same could be said about Sri Lanka cricket too. Spinners such as Abu Fuard, Somachandra De Silva, Kaluperuma, Daya Sahabandu and Ajit De Silva were the ones who made a great impact and helped Sri Lanka cricket to get the full membership status.
Of course in the contemporary era, it has been Muttiah Muralitharan who has been the flag-bearer, in the dominance of spin by Sri Lanka. Despite efforts made to devalue him, this great champion has shown his resilience. In the face of enormous threats, the opposition has not been able to hold him back.
Murali has proven to the cricketing world that conditions are not absolutely necessary; the bowlers who are good will succeed in any condition.
The crux of the matter is that Sri Lanka should nurture more spinners such as Murali, while their search for the fast bowlers are on.
The Sri Lanka schools cricket has not helped at all in encouraging the spinners. The great emphasis on limited-over cricket at a young age has virtually wiped out this art of bowling. This is a fundamental area that has to be addressed to and I believe the Schools Cricket Association has made moves in that direction. Spinners develop by bowling more and more in the middle, developing their confidence and levels of skill. This cannot happen in a limited-over scenario.
The other major aspect is for them to bowl on pitches that are not favourable to spin, so that they have to work more on their skills. The art of flight appears to have been neglected. It is a real delight to watch Murali, Warne, MacGill and Saqlain using the loop to deceive the batsmen and make them jittery.
The Sri Lankan Board had employed the services of Peter Philpot from Australia to help their spinners, however due to unavoidable circumstances Philpot was not able to come as per schedule, and to my mind this would be the opportune moment to hire the services of greats such as Prasanna and Bedi from across the Palk Straits to share their experiences.
After all, it is champion batsman like Ian Chappell who believes that "Pras" is one of the greatest and I have no doubt he will be of immense value if he shares his views to the up and coming Sri Lankan spinners.
At present, the Sri Lankans have a very well organised development programme with their fast bowlers, where talent scouts pick the best bowlers in the districts, out of whom a National squad of fast bowlers are picked.
This is done at the age groups under 15, 17 and 19 and they receive training throughout the year. This programme which is now under the care of Champaka Ramanayake, former paceman who had played for Sri Lanka.
He has taken over from Rumesh Ratnayake who has accepted an ACC Development Officer appointment. This programme has been a resounding success, but at the same time I feel that emphasis must also be given to look for big made kids who may not have the correct techniques, but have the ingredients to bowl quickly and can be effectively trained over a period of time.
The present programme tends to look for pace bowlers with reasonably good techniques rather than raw talent.
After all the National team requires only two or three quality fast bowlers, every five years, who with a good mix of spinners can pose a threat to the opposition.
Comments
SHARE