ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2018

Sri Lanka in 2017/18 Winning six and losing only two of their 12 Test matches in the 12-month period under review marked a considerable improvement in Sri Lanka’s fortunes. All their Tests in 2017/18 were away from home against other Asian sides, beginning with a 2-0 win over Pakistan in the UAE – Pakistan’s first-ever series defeat in their adopted home. The victory margins were relatively narrow, but to win both games – and in particular to restrict Pakistan to 114 in the fourth innings at Abu Dhabi when they needed only 136 for victory – was a fine achievement by any standards. There followed a three-match series in India, who had comprehensively thumped them at home three months previously. For Sri Lanka to emerge with only a 1-0 series defeat against the top-ranked Test side was no disgrace, even if they were helped by the weather in securing a draw at Kolkata. A heavy defeat at Nagpur preceded a fine rearguard action on the last day at Delhi, which began with the visitors on 31-3 (needing an unlikely 410 to win), but on which only two further wickets fell. Bangladesh proved rather less of a challenge early in 2018, when a high-scoring draw at Chittagong was followed by a straightforward win in a relatively low-scoring match at Mirpur. The Asian pitches had played to Sri Lanka’s strength in spin bowling, but the three-Test series in the Caribbean in June 2018 was something very different. The first Test was lost and the second drawn, but the third, under lights at Bridgetown, produced a series-levelling win in which the hero was opening batsman Kusal (MDKJ) Perera, who had been badly hurt in a fielding accident but came out at number 8 in Sri Lanka’s second innings to see his team home with an unbroken seventh-wicket partnership of 63 with Dilruwan (MDK) Perera. For once it was the Sri Lankan quicker bowlers who took the bowling honours for the series, led by relative newcomer Lahiru Kumara with 17 wickets at under 20 runs apiece. The final challenge was, on paper, pretty much as tough as any: a two-match series against South Africa. But at least, and at last, it was at home, and the spinners came back into their own to secure two very substantial victories, on the way inflicting on South Africa their lowest innings total against any side (73) since their readmission in 1992, and their three lowest totals against Sri Lanka in the 28 Tests in which the sides have met. For their successful twelve months, Sri Lanka owed much to their first-choice captain Dinesh Chandimal, who scored 936 runs in the nine matches in which he played; to openers Dimuth Karunaratne and Kusal Mendis, with 788 and 677 runs respectively, again each in nine matches; and to spinners Rangana Herath (41 wickets in nine matches) and Dilruwan Perera (44 in 11). But credit is also due to opening bowler Suranga Lakmal, who not only took 35 wickets in 12 Tests (he and wicketkeeper Dickwella were the only players to appear in all of Sri Lanka’s Tests over this period) but also led the side to three wins out of three when called upon to deputize for the absent Chandimal. And thereby hangs a tale. Few Sri Lankan seasons seem to pass without some level of controversy, and the period now under review was not one of them. The chief onfield drama came in the Test in St Lucia in June, when the Sri Lankan side risked forfeiting the match when they declined to take the field at the start of the third day after the umpires had penalised them by five runs for allegedly changing the condition of the ball. As captain, it was Chandimal who took the rap, being suspended from the following match at Bridgetown and voluntarily standing down from the series against South Africa because the incident was still under investigation by SLC. By winning in the UAE, Sri Lanka moved from seventh to sixth in the ICC rankings; and there, despite their later successes, they remained: generally well clear of seventh place, and sometimes snapping at the heels of fifth, but never quite making it. 463