Chandimal’s poisoned chalice

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Dinesh Chandimal, Angelo Mathews
@AFP PHOTO

In white ball cricket, Sri Lanka have been in the doldrums for quite some time now. Whitewashed 5-0 by Pakistan, India and South Africa last year, this year they have gone from bad to worse, crashing out of the Asia Cup even before Hong Kong lost to Afghanistan and a resurgent Bangladesh.

Sri Lanka ODI and Test squads named for England series

Sri Lanka announced their Test and ODI squads for the upcoming.

The national selection panel has been quite harsh on Angelo Mathews and perhaps rightly so. He remains the country’s best batsman in shorter formats of the game and a jolt like this will fire him up.  

Dinesh Chandimal has been chosen as the man to take the team through to the World Cup in England. The coaching staff, selectors and Chandimal himself look confident that the problems can be fixed. He has promised to make the side competitive again and stamp out indiscipline. He will surely bring more energy to the side. His leadership in Test cricket has indeed been commendable.

England, who will arrive in the island shortly, are ranked number one in the world and if Sri Lanka suffer a heavy defeat in the ODIs, there will be calls asking for Chandimal’s head. Indeed the captaincy can be a poisoned chalice when you look at the challenges at hand.

The easy way out for Chandimal would have been to be smarter and say no to the ODI captaincy given the mess the team is in at the moment. He would have been better off taking the team after the 2019 World Cup.

Read: I’ve been made a scapegoat in the Asia Cup saga – Angelo Mathews

With a couple of senior players retired, Chandimal then could have set his target on the 2023 World Cup with younger players. Now that he has accepted the driver’s seat, he has to go through some rocky roads with Sri Lanka set to tour New Zealand, Australia and South Africa over the next few months prior to the World Cup. This will either make or break Chandimal.

He could have also played it smart. When he was offered the captaincy, he could have told the selectors that he needs to be given the players that he wants. In good faith, he has compromised on certain selections. Now he has got to make sure that he has total control. It helps that someone of the caliber of Chandika Hathurusingha, a hands on coach, is at the helm.

Like Mathews, Chandimal is a decent guy. He has been groomed for the job having first made the captain of the T-20 side aged 23. But he has his own problems. His excesses in the West Indies where he was found guilty on two counts – ball tampering and bringing the game into disrepute, resulted in him accumulating ten demerit points. Another offence could lead to a severe suspension.

Slow over rate offences are not counted on demerit points. However, two slow over rate offences within 12 months could lead to a suspension. Chandimal was suspended in March this year for a slow over rate offence and he has to be extremely careful in making sure that his side bowls the quota of 50 overs in three and half hours. That is why captaincy can be a poisoned chalice for Chandimal.

Read More: From Predator to Prey: Sri Lanka’s disastrous Asia Cup campaign

Time has come for him to lead from the front rather trying to be popular. Sri Lanka had to bat for just two hours in Calcutta to save the first Test against India in December last year. They made a mess of the game and lost seven wickets in the two-hour period. With India trying to rush through the overs to take the remaining three wickets, the Sri Lankan skipper was seen complaining about poor light. He had no right to complain with batsmen having handled the situation so poorly.

Everyone cannot become an Arjuna Ranatunga. And Arjuna himself didn’t fight worthless causes. He chose his opponents and once he made up his mind, there was no turning back, come what may. Cheap popularity is something that Chandimal needs to avoid if the team needs to move forward.

The good thing is that he feels for Sri Lankan cricket. He has realized that the team is in a spot of bother and has to come out of it.

His first responsibility will be to fix the team’s fielding. Sri Lanka’s current fielding is awful to say the least. Sri Lanka lost to Bangladesh in the curtain raiser of the Asia Cup because of their fielding, with four catches being put down. And Bangladesh were able to qualify for the finals beating Pakistan in the virtual semi-final the other day, basically because of their fielding.

The national cricket team has to make it a priority to achieve minimum fielding standards and if they are not going to do it our cricket is going to stagnate. Fielding actually is not a discipline where you need enormous skill. If players are able to put in the hard work, the standards will improve. The bitter truth is, the team at present does very little fielding work.

Ask T.M. Dilshan how he improved his fielding. He wasn’t the sharpest on the field when he started. Initially he was a wicketkeeper. But he knew that through fielding he could make a difference and he started off working with former fielding coach Trevor Penny. After every practice session, he would spend time with Penny. Their target was getting ten direct hits from the cover region. Initially it took Dishan more than 50 attempts, but gradually the numbers came down. Dilshan retired as Sri Lanka’s best fielder. Commitment is the key to success is his message.