Today is no ordinary Sunday for Pavan Rathnayake. The lad from Mahanama turned 23 and as if on cue has been rewarded with his maiden call-up to the national squad for an overseas tour.
For years he has been banging on the selectors’ door with weighty scores for both Sri Lanka ‘A’ and in the domestic circuit. Now, the gate has finally swung open and Zimbabwe will be the stage where he earns his stripes.
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Sri Lanka’s selectors have long treated tours to Zimbabwe as the nursery where tomorrow’s stars are blooded. The gulf between club cricket and the international arena is vast and Harare has often been the halfway house. Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal and Farveez Maharoof all cut their teeth there. Of course, if you were Aravinda de Silva, you had no such luxury – straight into the lion’s den at Lord’s, facing Ian Botham and Bob Willis with not so much as a life jacket.
Watch Rathnayake bat and you sense that this boy is cut from the same cloth as those who make headlines. Former captains are unanimous: he is the next big thing. He doesn’t just nudge and nurdle his way in. If the spinners tempt him with mid-on and mid-off up, he’ll take the aerial route, chasing glory rather than a safe single. It is cricket played on the front foot, audacious and unafraid, the sort of batting that can electrify crowds – provided it is harnessed well.
But here lies the rub. Many a prodigy has walked in with fanfare, only to flounder under the weight of expectation. Some buckle, others lose their head. That is why it is vital Rathnayake is given a long rope – a chance to find his feet before sterner examinations arrive at the Asia Cup and the tour of Pakistan. Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor are batting greats.
To its credit, Sri Lanka Cricket has toughened up its domestic structure and given emerging players the springboard of the ‘A’ team and Development Squads. Opportunities have been many for players who are about to break into the senior side.
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That’s why Kamindu Mendis and Pathum Nissanka settled in so seamlessly. The hope is Rathnayake, too, makes the transition with minimum fuss. For Zimbabwe, too, this series is a marker. In the late ’90s they packed a punch – Andy Flower, Murray Goodwin, Neil Johnson and Alistair Campbell had them punching above their weight, with Flower, for a spell, in the same breath as Lara and Tendulkar. Then came the Mugabe years – political upheaval, farms abandoned, cricket left to wilt.
The coup that overthrew Mugabe has breathed fresh air into the nation and with it, the game. They’ve been busy this year, home and abroad and the more they play the stronger they’ll get. A resurgent Zimbabwe is good for cricket’s ecosystem. For Rathnayake, meanwhile, the moment has arrived. The stage is set, the pitch is rolled, and the time is ripe to turn promise into performance.
