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By Sa'adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka recorded their most impressive Test series victory when under Sanath Jayasuriya they routed the once mighty West Indies by a margin of 3-0 in the recently concluded three-Test series.

That a West Indies side could suffer such humiliation would have been quite unthinkable perhaps ten to 15 years ago. But while other Test nations have improved vastly, West Indies cricket, sad to say, has been on the downward gradient and the result reflects another nail in the coffin of a once proud cricket nation.

There was no doubt that Sri Lanka had their game plan worked out to the minutest detail to defeat the West Indies, but the margin of defeat even surprised Jayasuriya, who admitted that his team knew they had a very good chance of beating West Indies, but never by a 3-0 margin.

As Jayasuriya said, it was due to the excellent batting and bowling contributions throughout the series that saw Sri Lanka outclass West Indies in this manner.

"We never had a series where the batsmen scored runs and the bowlers took wickets so consistently. That was the key factor in our victory," said Jayasuriya at the end of the series.

Topping the batting was Hashan Tillakaratne who added that much needed stability to the middle line up. Having been overlooked for the best part of two years, Tillakaratne, it seemed, was trying to catch upon lost time and what progress he made. A batting average of Bradman-like proportion of 403.00 clearly showed the contribution he made batting at number six.

Since his return to the national side for the Indian series, Tillakaratne has batted with the enthusiasm of a player who has just made his entry into international cricket. His last six Test innings has produced scores of 136 (n.o.), 10 (n.o.), 105 (n.o.), 87 & 7 (n.o.), and a career best 204 (n.o.).

If Tillakaratane found himself out of favour with the selectors after the 1999 World Cup it was largely due to the presence of two other batting stalwarts Arjuna Ranatunga and Aravinda de Silva. As long as they were in the team, there was no place for him and he got his break in the Indian series, only because De Silva fell foul with the selectors and Ranatunga had retired from the international scene.

Whereas on previous occasions he had to depend on the tailenders for support, in this series he had Tilan Samaraweera in partnership.

Samaraweera has improved vastly and he is learning with every game he plays. The pair was responsible for producing partnerships of 154 at Galle and 165 at the SSC for the sixth wicket, which completely put the Test beyond the reach of the opposition. Apart from the contributions of Tillakaratne and Samaraweera who finished second in the batting averages, the top four in the Sri Lanka batting - Jayasuriya, Marvan Atapattu, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene all averaged over 40, lending much stability.

Usually the Sri Lankan bowling is dominated by just one bowler - off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan. But this series saw Chaminda Vaas, the left-arm seamer coming up to prove that he too can win matches for his country with a sensational 14-wicket haul in the final Test at the SSC.

What made Vaas' effort all the more commendable was that he took his wickets on a strip which was still good for batting as was proved by Brian Lara's and Ramnaresh Sarwan's contributions on the final day.

Vaas overshadowed Muralitharan for once and finished the series as the leading wicket-taker with 26 wickets, a figure which Muralitharan has twice before achieved in a Test series in Pakistan and against South Africa at home. With Muralitharan taking 24 wickets, the two bowlers picked up 50 of the 60 wickets the West Indies lost in the series. Had Dilhara Fernando too been available, Sri Lanka's bowling would have looked formidable and one dreads to think what sort of resistance the West Indies would have put up then. Even without his extra yard of pace, the West Indies succumbed meekily to Vaas, Zoysa and Muralitharan.

Muralitharan destroyed them in the first two Tests taking 21 wickets and when they came up with a game plan to counter him, Vaas with his ability to swing the new and the old ball ran through their batting in the final Test taking 14 wickets.

So the West Indies had more than their share of problems and they had only one world class batsman in the side in Brian Lara and one who was learning the game very fast in Ramnaresh Sarwan. The contributions made by these two players at least ensured the three Tests lasted the distance.

Lara written off by some as past his best in the Caribbean, came back with a vengeance to prove a point that he is still among the world's best by accumulating 688 runs (avg. 114.66) with three centuries, while Sarwan had the next best aggregate with 318 runs (avg. 53.00).

Captain Carl Hooper who had a pretty ordinary series (167 runs, avg.

27.83), said without any inhibitions that Lara was the difference between the Test matches lasting five days rather than three.

One of the prime concerns of the West Indies was that they were never given a proper start to any of their six innings in the series by the opening pair Chris Gayle and Daren Ganga. Partnerships of 15, 3, 8, 3, 2, and 1 meant that the middle-order was always under pressure and exposed to the new ball. In that aspect a lot of credit should go to Sarwan and Lara for weathering the new ball and putting up three century stands which at least gave West Indies some decent totals.

Lara however was the kingpin of the batting and all five century partnerships West Indies produced in the series evolved around him. Once Lara, Sarwan and Hooper had placed them in a position to produce a big total, what the West Indies couldn't stomach was the poor contribution they got from their lower half of the batting.

They virtually threw away several opportunities of putting pressure on Sri Lanka from positions of strength because their lower order failed to sustain the good work done at the top. Their lower order collapses were all too familiar in the series as seen by the figures here: (1st Test) - 6 wickets for 25 runs and 5 for 13, (2nd Test) - 5 for 24 and 4 for 5 (3rd Test) - 7 for 43 and 7 for 59.

Apart from their batting, West Indies did not have the bowlers to run through the opposition's batting. The present crop of fast bowlers are nowhere near to the much feared pace bowlers the West Indies were renowned for three decades from the seventies. Curtley Ambrose and Courtney Walsh were the last in a long and impressive line of fast bowlers they were blessed with.

One last word from Lara: "One thing I can say is that Sri Lanka are not being successful just because of natural ability. They have been planning for this over a number of years and now it is coming to fruition".

What of the West Indies: "We have got to put our thinking cap on. It is not something that one or two people can solve. We have to see if we can put more money into the game and what other things we can do. All the other countries are doing that. It may be five more years but there has to be light at the end of the tunnel".

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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