Selection Changes: Aye or Nay

A bit of both actually.

The good thing is that selection changes have been made. And that was necessary because the squad that went to India certainly wasn’t going to win us a world cup. It’s good to see that as much as I’ve been banging on about it for 18 months now, it needed a debacle for any action to be taken. What is it with our countrymen and their inability to see the train coming out the end of the tunnel until it’s almost knocked you down? And I’m not just talking about the cricket.

I’m a big fan of Jeevan Mendis coming back into the side. He has done well in the shortened versions of the game and his performances with both bat and ball in the Caribbean Premier League as well as the Bangladesh Premier League, together with his form the in the warm up game have definitely warranted a recall. It’s good that Sanath Jayasuriya is going on form rather than just reputation. Mendis does the job better than the likes of Prasanna and Chaturanga Silva would have done. The Seekuge experiment failed, and while there is time for him to blossom into a useful all rounder, that time is not now.

So with the form pick, I’m surprised that Jayasuriya also went in for Thilina Kandamby. In case it’s not obvious I have NOTHING against Thilina Kandamby, he’s in fact a really mature cricketer and a stand up bloke. But I’m not sure his game is exactly what Sri Lanka need at the moment. He is very much a knock it around and accumulate sort of player. Also, he is a liability in the field. He’s a good leader and a good reader of the game but we have enough of that in the side already. He’s great at holding an end up but with Thirimanne in the side who can play that role as well we need someone a little more adaptable. With the exclusion of Ashan Priyanjan we need a guy who can score quick runs as well as bat responsibly. Someone who has the game to change it up when needed.

Russel Arnold was the last guy to do it with aplomb. A superb finisher. Mubarak has done it on the odd occasion with the crucial 30 off 20 sort of innings which a lot of people choose to ignore. Similarly Kapugedera’s shunting up and down the order, then being called up from obscurity to play the World Cup final were enormously unfair on the young talent. Now he’s not so young but going great guns in the BPL. He scored back to back hundreds and is hitting the ball as well as ever. Also, he is electric in the field and cab be the difference together with Jeevan Mendis in the infield to put pressure on opposition batsman.

Let’s face it, the grounds in Australia are not going to be docile boundary rich grounds like in India. They will need batsmen to work for their runs and that’s when fielding becomes invaluable. You can be the best fielding side in the world but when Rohit was hitting it like he did for that 264 all you can do is stand and watch. But in the world cup with the pressure on, things can be very different. NZ almost defended a tiny score at the RPS in SL’s semi final against NZ. You can field a team out of a game. And we have to give ourselves every chance to do that. With our old hands being exactly that, and the younger players not lighting up the field, spare a thought for Trevor Penney who has been tasked with making SL a strong fielding outfit. He’s more likely to do that with the likes of Kapugedera in the squad than with Kandamby. Even to bring on as a 12th man. If we’re going to stifle teams with 25 – 30 overs of spin, we will need to field well.

The bowling changes I like. Ajantha Mendis has done well enough to get himself into the ICC team. Shaminda Eranga bowled well in England and will enjoy facing the same batsmen in different conditions. Kulasekera is out and probably has reached his use by date. His miserliness and control were his strong points and he seems to have lost that. But at home, Mendis, Rangana and Mendis will prove difficult to handle for the English lads.

It’s only the squad for the first three ODI’s. Expecting Kanda to come out of the wilderness and prove his worth in three games is a tough ask. If he’s capable of changing his game like Thilan Samaraweera did, then good luck to him. But this squad is going in the right direction. It just needs to keep going.