By Harsha Amarasinghe

Australia made a bold decision to include Glenn Maxwell to their Test squad which faces Sri Lanka in the two-match series starting off on June 29. 

Following the highly competitive 3-2 ODI series win against the Aussies, this was the worst possible news for the Sri Lanka spin department which is under immense pressure following their below par performances against India and Bangladesh.

Although Maxwell has not played a Test match since 2017, one could make an educated guess on how is going to approach the rank turners down in Galle.

On the one hand, it is little too harsh to be critical of the spin trio of Lasith Embuldeniya (16), Praveen Jayawickrama (5) and Ramesh Mendis (6) who have not played much at the highest level and are relatively young, but then this is Test cricket and there is very little margin for errors.

It is fair to say, they were quite poor against India and Bangladesh. Despite taking wickets in India, they were very inconsistent with both line and length and hence leaked far too many runs.

In Bangladesh, they just couldn’t take wickets and again were not impressive in terms of being economical.

These three spinners are not bad bowlers.  Lasith Embuldeniya has had some great performances in the past, Jayawickrama on his debut set a record taking 11 wickets in 2021, and Ramesh Mendis was lethal against West Indies seven months ago, but all of them have one big common problem – they are falling apart under pressure.

They are extremely tough to play when the opponent is on the defense, but the likes of Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, Mushfiqur Rahim and Litton Das showed them no respect and the likes of Jayawickrama crumbled under pressure. This is why Maxwell is a nightmare for the Sri Lankan spinners – the fact that the right hander is extremely aggressive against the spinners with his sweeps and reverse sweeps, could cause a lot of trouble for Dimuth Karunaratne’s side.

Traditionally, the visiting teams have been brushed aside in Galle by the Sri Lankans over the years, but there have been some extraordinary performances from extraordinary players which have led to some extraordinary victories in Galle – one of which being Virender Sehwag’s unbeaten 201 in 2008. It was a magnificent innings for many reasons. Ajantha Mendis had just been introduced to Test cricket and in a team that included the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly, Gautam Gambhir, and believe or not Dinesh Karthik, Sehwag single handedly won the match courtesy of a first innings double century aggregating nearly 70% of their total. 

The matches in Galle are expected to be low- scoring encounters, and one powerful innings with the bat could have a significant impact on the outcome of the match for Aussies. If Maxwell could bat for two straight sessions, Sri Lanka will have a lot to worry about.

Wella – heartbeat of SL

For years, the Mumbai crowd was splendid with their ‘Malinga’ chants during the IPL and that was one sign which indicated Sri Lanka had an absolute global star in Lasith Malinga, but his empire of yorkers did not build overnight. The current bowling consultant of the Sri Lanka team had to establish his reputation through years of top-class performances, but for the 19-year-old Dunith Wellalage, it was a whole different story playing his first ever international series against one of the best teams in the world, and the whole stadium singing ‘Wella’ repeatedly.

Perhaps, it was his heroics in the Under 19 World Cup that earned him the respect of the fans, but he did not let the crowds down finishing his first ODI series as the highest wicket-taker.

Many expected him to be in the Sri Lanka playing XI against the Aussies in the first Test, but the selectors opted to only name him as a
standby. Given the form and the performance of youngsters, it was a huge call, Praveen must be pretty good in nets.