Time to bring Hasaranga back for Tests?

By Harsha Amarasinghe

Wanindu Hasaranga has been Sri Lanka’s biggest match-winner in the limited-overs formats for a few years now. A product of Richmond College, the leg-spinner ended up being the highest wicket-taker in the T20 World Cup last year as well as the Abu Dhabi T10 while capturing 26 wickets in arguably the biggest cricket festival in the world – the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Despite the limited-overs success, Hasaranga has not been able to carry his form into Test cricket taking only four wickets in four matches at an average of over 100, in complete contrast to his T20I average of 13.75.

The 24-year-old has not been considered for Test cricket since April 2021 as the selectors gave opportunities for the spin trio of Ramesh Mendis, Lasith Embuldeniya and Praveen Jayawickrama.

While their performances at home have been impressive, they were disastrous in the last couple of away series. In India although they were able to pick up wickets on rank turners, they leaked far too many runs against ofcourse quality batting line-ups, but what is more concerning is how they bowled in Bangladesh.

Surprisingly, Bangladesh had not prepared wickets that were turning from the day one, but somehow Bangladesh spinners, led by Shakib al Hasan (9), Nayeem Hasan (6), Taijul Islam (4) were among the wickets. In comparison Embuldeniya (1), Mendis (1) and Jayawickrama (0) were quite awful.

On the other hand, none of these bowlers have contributed with the bat either. While Jayawickrama and Embuldeniya are purely bowlers, Mendis has disappointed with the bat despite the very decent first-class batting record – the off-spinner still looks million miles away from being an all-rounder.

Captain Dimuth Karunaratne is a very calm and cool character, but even the senior man could not resist taking a dig at the spinners following the 1-0 series win in Bangladesh, claiming that he was ‘disappointed’ with the performances of the spinners.

It is fair to say that the national selectors haven’t always given him the best options in terms of team selections. For instance, the selectors picked Sri Lanka’s premier fast bowler Dushmantha Chameera for the Indian Test series a couple of months ago, but then midway through the tour they informed Karunaratne that he cannot be picked for the playing XI because they are saving him for the T20 World Cup later in the year.

Karunaratne would certainly need a much stronger bowling attack against Australia as it is an extremely important series in the ICC Test Championship.

When Sri Lanka hammered Australia 3-0 in 2016, Rangana Herath was the hero for the home team, and then captain of Australia Steven Smith said after the series, “Herath gives you no freebies”, which was one of the reasons why he was so successful taking as much as 28 wickets in three Tests. But the current spin trio of Sri Lanka gives away far too many freebies.

Malinda Pushpakumara or Prabath Jayasuriya could certainly be better options in home conditions, but the selectors would not go back to the two veteran spinners as they have always opted for youngsters, but out of the current bunch of spinners in Sri Lanka, Hasaranga would probably be the best pick.

The Australian batting line-up consists of at least four left-handers, with the likes of David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Travis Head and Alex Carry expected to feature, which is certainly not a good sign for the prospects of bringing in Hasaranga as he has continued to struggle against the left handers. But on turning wickets Hasaranga can be very difficult to play. In addition, Hasaranga is more than handy with the bat down the order because this is expected to be a low-scoring series and hence contribution from the lower order is vital.