Rangana Herath has been the national cricket team’s faithful servant for the past seven years notably following the retirement of Muthiah Muralitharan after which he managed to secure a permanent place in the side. As long as Muralitharan was around and bowling his team to victory after victory Herath remained on the sidelines forced to bide his time.
But the long wait has been rewarding for once the great man quit the scene Sri Lanka didn’t have to look any further than the left-arm spin of Herath to plug that gap.
The big question here is who will Sri Lanka turn to after Herath retires? Have they groomed someone to fill his big shoes? The answer is ‘no’. There have been several spinners in the fray but none have been tried out at Test level.
One cricket fan commented: “Sometimes I shudder when I think what will happen after Herath retires.”
He is spot on with that comment.
Another fan commented: “I don’t care how strong or weak your FC system is, it is unthinkable that someone with 500 FC wickets has not played for his country.” He was referring to another left-arm spinner Malinda Pushpakumara who has 558 wickets in 99 first-class matches but still has no place in the team.
Sri Lanka has the right-arm leg-spin of Jeffrey Vandersay who has been tried out in one-day matches and the left-arm chinaman of Lakshan Sandakan who has played five Tests and a handful of one-day games. They have also tried out the left-arm spin Milinda Siriwardana and the off-breaks of Tharindu Kaushal over the past three years but none have been given a consistent run to consolidate their positions.
Selection for Test sides has not gone beyond Herath and Dilruwan Perera and the latter who is 34 might also go out of the game the same time as Herath which could be a double blow. Herath and Perera have complimented each other whenever they have played together especially at home and the pair has proved to be quite a successful combination.
Now after seven years as the main spearhead and having bowled his country to several memorable victories Herath is nearing the end of his career and at 39 although he is fit and spritely on the field and can reel off 70-80 overs in a Test how long he can continue to play at the highest level is a matter of conjecture. In order to extend his Test career Herath quit playing in the one-day format (ODIs and T20Is) shortly after the World T20 in April 2016.
In the recently concluded one-off Test against Zimbabwe in addition to carrying a heavy load in bowling, Herath was seen manning the offside boundary all day long and the way he moved about in the field put to shame some of the players younger than him.
When Herath quit one-day cricket he said, “I have not set any goals for myself. Whenever I have played for my country, I have always wanted to see how best I could contribute to win. That has been my approach all the time. It would be a big achievement if I can get to 300 Test wickets, but after that, I don’t see any goals that I can pursue.”
Despite his surgically repaired knees Herath has kept going and in his own way has entered his name in the record books as the most successful left-arm spinner in Test history having gone past New Zealand’s Daniel Vettori’s tally of 362 wickets in 34 lesser Tests (79 Tests to Vettori’s 113).
Herath is now nearing 400 Test wickets – something which he wouldn’t have dreamt of when he got to 300. His recent haul of 11 wickets for 249 runs against Zimbabwe has taken his overall tally to 384 wickets from 81 Tests. Among all left-arm bowlers only Pakistan fast bowler Wasim Akram is ahead of Herath with 414 scalps.
At the moment Sri Lanka cricket is struggling to come to terms with losing some of their legendary stars like Jayawardene, Sangakkara and Dilshan. With fast bowler Lasith Malinga also on the wane in the one-day format Herath remains Sri Lanka’s only hope of salvaging something out of the wreckage the country’s cricket has fallen into. But his efforts alone cannot resurrect the fortunes of a fallen team unless others also pull up their socks and contribute.
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