The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Sri Lanka counting on Malinga

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 11, 2005

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Sport - Cricket

Sri Lanka counting on Malinga

WELLINGTON, APRIL 10. New Zealand will work on strategies to overcome Sri Lanka's unorthodox fast-bowling discovery Lasith Malinga in the second cricket Test, which starts on Monday at the Basin Reserve.

Malinga took eight wickets in the drawn first Test at Napier and came close on the final day to bowling Sri Lanka to a win in a match played on a hard, flat batting pitch.

His unconventional, round-arm action caused problems for the New Zealand batsmen who struggled to pick his length from his unusual release point at only shoulder height.

Twice in the first Test New Zealand batsmen asked umpires Steve Bucknor and Darrell Hair to change or remove items of clothing because the ball, delivered with an almost horizontal arm, became invisible against a dark background.

Both umpires removed their burgundy ties in the first innings and Bucknor was forced to cover his dark trousers in the second to provide the batsman with a lighter backdrop.

``We just consistently can't see him,'' New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming said after the Napier Test.

``Out of the hand you see it from the umpire's shirt and then you lose it in the trousers.''

At Napier, New Zealand took charge of the match with its first innings of 561, then almost gave it up when it was all out for 238 in its second innings.

``There's a lot of anxiety going into that (second) innings which we can get rid of by learning the game better,'' Fleming said.

``We're either being too positive or too negative. We're defending for too long or when we do attack it's for four or six rather than finding other ways to skin a cat. Our batsmanship is not smart enough.''

New Zealand is likely to take an unchanged side into the match, although it will choose on Monday whether to include Kyle Mills or Iain O'Brien as its third seam-bowling option.

Sri Lanka has little incentive to change the team, which came close to winning the first match of the two-test series. The series was originally scheduled to be played in December but was postponed when a tsunami hit Sri Lanka, killing an estimated 33,000 people in the country.

The teams:

New Zealand (from): Craig Cumming, James Marshall, Hamish Marshall, Stephen Fleming (captain), Lou Vincent, Nathan Astle, Bredon McCullum, James Franklin, Paul Wiseman, Kyle Mills, Iain O'Brien, Chris Martin.

Sri Lanka (from): Marvan Atapattu (captain), Sanath Jayasuriya, Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Thilan Samaraweera, Shantha Kalavitigoda, Upul Chandana, Chaminda Vaas, Rangana Herath, Farveez Maharoof, Nuwan Kulasekara, Lasith Malinga, Ruchira Perera. — AP

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