Incredibly Underrated Chandimal Rises for Occasion

By Harsha Amarasinghe

Dinesh Chandimal has been one of Sri Lanka's best batsmen since the golden era of Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, TM Dilshan and Thilan Samaraweera.

Angelo Mathews was seen as the country's premier batsman for nearly the past seven years or so alongside captain Dimuth Karunaratne. Kusal Mendis has also established himself as a top order run machine for the Islanders despite his off field antics once in a while.

However, Chandimal is the one senior batsman who has gone under the radar despite consistent performances in the recent past, until Monday when the middle batting sensation produced one of the finest ever knocks at Galle International Cricket Stadium.

His unbeaten 206 included five 6s and he brought up his 200 in gallant style smashing arguably the best left arm fast bowler in the world, Mitchell Starc out of the park. This is not a sight many fans are used to. While hitting Starc for a six is a tough task, doing it on a consistent basis, Chandimal made the Aussie quick look like a left arm Stuart Broad.

When Chandimal came on to bat at 186 for three Sri Lanka were in a relatively decent situation, but with a strong first innings score of 364, the visitors were still sitting pretty looking to cause a batting collapse with their number one spinner Nathan Lyon on top of his game and turning the ball a mile.

This was when Chandimal changed the tempo of the entire series, whacking Lyon for a four and six early on his innings clearly showing his intentions. This put the pressure on the entire Australian bowling attack as their spin king was smashed around which allowed both Mathews and later debutant Kamindu Mendis to settle in and get their runs.

Chandimal has a habit of producing innings of this calibre once in a while at Galle. He played a similar knock against India in 2015 to win a game from an impossible scenario taking on a bowling attack that included Ishant Sharma, Ravi Ashiwn and Harbhajan Singh.

Jayasuriya justifies Call-up

Prabath Jayasuriya was called in for the Test team following a series of covid cases to the national team and immediately succeeded grabbing a six fer in the first innings.

While he was in and around the national circuit for a while, he was never considered to be in the top three spinners of the Sri Lanka test team, but after a really poor display against Aussies in the first Test match, Lasith Embuldeniya was released from the national squad paving room for one left arm spinner.

Many expected young Dunith Wellalage to make his debut, but captain Dimuth Karunaratne clearly showed his confidence in Jayasuriya in his pre match press conference and his trust has been paid off by the left arm spinner.

Jayasuriya had a difficult start to the match when he was hit for runs early on his debut, but he showed great character and experience to come back strongly to the game.

Sri Lanka are so far away from replacing Rangana Herath, but they have certainly found a very good left arm spinner in Jayasuriya.