34-years ago, Sri Lanka made their Test debut

Thirty-four years ago, Sri Lanka became the eighth Test-playing nation with a one-off Test against England in Colombo. Sri Lanka put up a valiant effort: England eked out a first-innings lead of miserly 5 runs, and with Sri Lanka 167 for 3 in their second innings, they were very much in control of the match. It took John Emburey, the most unlikeliest of bowlers, to turn the match on its head. His five wickets sparked an almighty collapse as Sri Lanka lost their last seven wickets for eight runs, and England strolled to a comfortable seven-wicket win.



Match Scorecard

Time does Fly !

I saw Gower in that match  :-[

There were some pretty good players on both sides of that Test match - Ranatunga and Roy Dias for Sri Lanka, Gooch, Gower, Botham, Underwood and Willis for England.

While looking over scorecards from Sri Lanka's first 2 years in the Test match arena, I came across the most wonderful stat: from January 1982 - January 1984, India failed to win a match in any of the 27 Tests played, however, they did manage to draw 18 matches. 18 draws and 0 wins in 27 matches is an extremely low statistical probability.

34 years is a long time, and they have made significant progress in their Test competitiveness in this short time. It's amazing to see in 34 years of Test history Sri Lanka such great players like Muralitharan, Sangakarra, Chaminda Vaas, Jayawardene and Jayasuriya. Not to mention Arjuna Ranatunga who was a really great leader. They have gone down a bit due to an inexperienced side but hopefully they will redeem themselves soon.

Sri Lanka have produced some wonderful players through the years. Picking an all-time XI is a difficult task, nonetheless here is my XI:

Sanath Jayasuriya
Marvan Atapattu
Kumar Sangakkara (wk)
Aravinda de Silva
Mahela Jayawardene
Arjuna Ranatunga (c)
Chaminda Vaas
Rangana Herath
Lasith Malinga
Muttiah Muralitharan
Ashantha de Mel

Those very unfortunate to miss out are Angelo Mathews, Rumesh Ratnayake, Roy Dias, Somachandra de Silva, Thilan Samaraweera and Tillakaratne Dilshan.

Sri Lanka have produced some top class batsman though they have struggled to find world class bowlers. In fact, to date, Sri Lanka have still only produced 5 bowlers to have taken 100+ wickets in Test match cricket - Muralitharan, Vaas, Herath Malinga and Fernando.

For a team that's not even 40 years old, there's no doubt that Sri Lanka have done a great job in getting to were they are now, even, like you say without ever producing a world class bowler.

Sri Lanka do take a bit of stick sometimes, and while I do think with the players they've had, you might expect them to be in a better position than what they are, I think the future is looking healthier than it ever had for them.

I just had this personal issue with Sinhalese representation.

and lack of Tamil exposure !

They could be better if they can be inclusive.

Muralitharan, Vaas and Malinga most certainly qualify as world class bowlers. I'm not sure anyone would argue that point. I'd probably add Herath in with them, though his numbers outside of Sri Lanka aren't quite as impressive.

Andrew Fidel Fernando over at ESPN put together this interesting piece about the scarcity of quality fast bowlers produced by Sri Lanka over the years.

www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/675829.html

In the three year since that column was penned, Sri Lanka have continued to struggle to produce pace bowlers with any consistency, though Dushmantha Chameera has some serious potential and Dhammika Prasad, while not getting any younger, has been superb over this period.

Sri Lankan fast bowlers are pitiable human beings. Playing on surfaces which offer absolutely nothing to the fast bowlers, with low and slow bounce and where mystery spinners are the superstars must be an extremely difficult proposition. Like Chaminda Vaas earlier and Dhammika Prasad nowadays, they are always severely underrated and are mostly playing under the shadows of their spinning counterparts.