Bangladesh Succumb to Pressure as Khettarama Hosts a Remarkable Fightback

In recent years, at least two captains of Sri Lanka's men's white-ball squad have stated that they would much rather this piece of work, the Khettarama pitch, learn how to behave.

The theory goes something like this.  Where other top white-ball countries have rolled out flatter and flatter white-ball surfaces, pushing totals into the stratosphere and bowling economy rates into adjacent galaxies, Sri Lanka's home pitch remains trapped in the 1990s.  It's devious.  It allows the ball to perform wicked little dances on it.  It frequently rises in the middle of an inning and chokes a chase. According to the hypothesis, Sri Lanka's hitters and bowlers are not developing the abilities needed to compete on the kind of surfaces used in current white-ball cricket.

Charith Asalanka had stated ahead of the match that "this pitch [at Khettarama] will be a bit more batting-friendly than usual".  He said that with the conviction of a man who was aware of the team's instructions to the curator over the type of surface that the curator should produce. 

Having been assured that this would not be another spin-friendly track, Asalanka chose three seamers in his XI, giving Milan Rathnayake his debut over left-arm spin-bowling allrounder Dunith Wellalage, who is already a Khettarama favourite, averaging 16.60 with the ball at this venue.

For 66.2 overs of this match, it seemed that Asalanka was correct.  It wasn't a "more-batting-friendly-than-usual Khettarama deck".  Batters were hitting through the lines.  Long-term errors were severely punished.  Asalanka struck a valiant 106 off 123 for Sri Lanka, which came as no surprise given that he has quietly established himself as one of the world's top ODI middle-order batters. 

But Sri Lanka had lost 3 for 29 to begin with, seven of their wickets to seam bowling, and never really had a large partnership, so their 244 all out appeared 30 runs short, especially when Tanzid Hasan and Najmul Hossain Shanto were bouncing through those early overs.

However, old habits die hard; we can never truly deny our true selves, there is comfort in the familiar, and joy in wonderful stories retold.

Perhaps the pitch has suddenly regained some of its viciousness.  Maybe Sri Lanka restored some of its former spin-bowling mayhem.  Maybe Bangladesh dug deep and discovered one of their previous failures against Sri Lanka.  It's plausible that all three happened. What we know for certain is that seven wickets were lost for five runs.  And never before in ODI history have wickets Nos. 2 through 8 fallen for fewer runs than this.

Kamindu Mendis is at the forefront of the spin-bowling mayhem dispute.  Kamindu is primarily a batter, but going 3 for 19 in an innings is remarkable enough.  But, of course, we're talking Sri Lankan spin bowling, not batting, and even on that front, he is a wild cricketer.  His first two wickets came with left-arm spin, which he prefers as a left-handed hitter.  However, his third wicket, left-hand hitter Taskin Ahmed, was dismissed by right-arm offspin. 

"Bowlers who can bowl with either arm are valuable," said Wanindu Hasaranga, who went 4 for 10 - the best statistics in the game.  Hasaranga's wickets at this venue are not surprising.  But Kamindu is a unique colleague on the other end.  "When a left-hand-right-hand combination bats, he can spin the ball away from both.  That's quite valuable.  The spell he cast made things easier for me, too.  Players like that are extremely valuable." 

If dual-arm bowling becomes more popular, Sri Lanka appears to be the obvious starting point for such a cricketing progression.  In the recent week, Tharindu Rathnayake, a dual-arm Test bowler, took wickets with both arms in a single innings.  This is already common practice in Sri Lanka, much like carrom ball did here long before it got popular.

And it should be emphasised that Bangladesh's batters were also channelling the easy-to-beat Bangladesh sides of the 1990s, with some terrible batting.  They were 99–1 at one point.  They soon had a 105-7 record.  No major innings recovers from such a slump.  It was a momentous failure. 

Bangladesh's batters have previously demonstrated perseverance and strength against Sri Lanka.  Sri Lanka has demonstrated a readiness to move away from spin-friendly surfaces.  But sometimes we get stuck in old habits.  And then, almost by chance, seven wickets fell for five runs.