Spotlight on spinners, as Sri Lanka honour spin legend Shane Warne

By Shehan Daniel reporting from Galle

He may no longer have the luxury of calling on Rangana Herath to torment the Australians, the way the left-arm spinner did in 2016, but Sri Lanka’s captain believes the young spinners available to him can be just as effective when the two teams meet again in Galle on Wednesday.

Such was Herath’s impact during that series that he accounted for 28 wickets, 12 more than Australia’s own left-arm spinner Nathan Lyon, with Sri Lanka sweeping all three Tests.

While expecting similar levels of excellence from the current crop of spinners might be unrealistic, Karunaratne was confident that their knowledge of the conditions would make up for the deficit in experience compared to the now-retired Herath.

Sri Lanka were flirting with the idea of playing with a fourth specialist spinner, possibly at the expense of one of the fast bowlers who featured during the Test series in Bangladesh, suggesting that the pitch could play out as a typical Galle pitch does – underlined by Australia captain Pat Cummins’ confirmation that his team will play a second spinner in Mitchell Swepson.

Speaking on Sri Lanka’s spin options, Karunaratne said: “There are three spinners who can play that role. Lasith Embuldeniya, Ramesh Mendis and Praveen Jayawickrama have very good experience bowling in these conditions and we also have Jeffrey Vandersay. These bowlers are capable of doing the job Rangana Herath did and I am sure they will do it.

“Yes, there is a gap (in experience), but we have home advantage. What we need to do is to bowl in the right areas on these wickets – that is what the experienced bowlers like Rangana and Dilruwan Perera also did and constantly troubled the batsmen. If we do these things right, I don’t think whether we have experience or not will matter that much,” Karunaratne added.

Cummins, meanwhile, labelled Swepson “an important cog”, particularly in describing his contributions on Australia’s tour to Pakistan.  

They were yet to make a call on batsman Travis Head, whose absence could see the return of Glenn Maxwell to the Test side.

"Just want to see how Travis gets through, so we'll give him bit more time. But yes, Mitchell Swepson will be the second spinner in the Test match," Cummins said yesterday.

He added that his team was unfazed by the challenging conditions that may await them, but trusted the preparation work put in by his team.

“I think Sri Lanka play really well over here. It's quite different to what we experience in Australia. That's the challenge of trying to win overseas. A lot of our preparation work has been around trusting our own methods. We might go about it a little bit differently to Sri Lanka will. They're going to pose a challenge but we are up for it,” Cummins said.

The two-Test series, played for the Warne-Muralitharan Trophy, takes on an added sense of importance, following the passing of spin legend Shane Warne earlier this year, with Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) paying tribute by dedicating the Test to the late great.

SLC said it would hold a commemoration ceremony to pay tribute to Warne, just before the commencement of the first Test with hoardings of both spin legends together put up around the stadium, which the former Australian cricket took an active role in rebuilding after it was destroyed in the 2004 Tsunami.  

“I think it’s a good thing. Shane Warne is a legend, we know the contribution he has made to world cricket. To dedicate the Murali-Warne trophy to a cricketer of that stature is a very good gesture,” Karunaratne said.