The unsung Suranga Lakmal

By Madushka Balasuriya in Galle

With 58 caps and 141 wickets under his belt, a cursory glance at Suranga Lakmal’s Test career wouldn’t warrant a second thought. But say he’s the second most capped fast-bowler in Sri Lanka’s Test history, on the verge of becoming only the second Lankan quick after Chaminda Vaas to take 150 Test wickets, and your ears might perk up a little more.

Such an understated career owes much to the fact that his best work has been primarily conducted away from Sri Lanka, where seam averse pitches rule the roost; Christchurch, Port Elizabeth, and Brisbane are the three grounds where Lakmal has picked up his three five-wicket Test hauls, all far more suitable to bounce extracted from his unassuming 6’2 frame.

As such it will be unsurprising to learn that 109 of his 141 wickets have come away from home. Though for much of Sri Lanka’s eager cricket viewing public, Lakmal’s local exploits have rarely carried the same impact as the aforementioned Vaas, or offered the same explosive memorability as the long-retired-from-Tests Lasith Malinga.

But in the end that is the hand Lakmal has been dealt; a career in which, for the most part, he’s been perennially underrated, if not overlooked. This despite being one of the team’s few bright sparks over the last year and a half, in the midst of Sri Lanka’s terminal decline. As he once again proved in the ongoing first Test against New Zealand. 

Following a miserly yet unproductive opening day, in which he picked up no wickets but went for just 14 runs in 10 overs, Lakmal turned up the ante on the second morning to devastating effect.Off his first ball, he had the set Ross Taylor – unbeaten on 86 at the time – offer a false stroke, cutting at a wide delivery that had bounced a touch more than the batsman had anticipated, and edging through to a gleeful Niroshan Dickwella behind the stumps.

If there was a touch of fortune surrounding Taylor’s dismissal, Lakmal’s next scalp was all planning, with Mitchell Santner shouldering arms to a straight delivery which seamed back towards the stumps. The umpire had no doubt raising his finger for LBW.

“Yesterday, I was looking back at how I was bowling and I realised that I was little bit away from the line I should have been on,” explained Lakmal of his thinking following the end of the day’s play. 

“So I had a chat with the coach and set a plan in the morning. Since the wicket looked a bit slow, we thought of bowling at the stumps. And that plan worked really well in the morning session.”

It would be this strategy that would prove fruitful once more as Lakmal returned for a second spell, with Trent Boult eyeing up a fast-scoring cameo and Sri Lanka desperately needing a wicket. 

Knowing the wicket was holding up, and sticking to his tactic of making the batsman play, Lakmal arrowed in a length ball at Boult’s leg stump. The sluggish surface did the rest as Boult was only able to toe-end a slog to deep mid-on. The very next delivery, Lakmal had wrapped up the innings. Straight and fast is good enough for most number elevens, and so it was for Ajaz Patel, who was wrapped on the pads in front of the stumps - an unsuccessful DRS review showing the ball clipping leg stump. For Lakmal though, this four-wicket haul – the fifth best bowling performance of his career incidentally – was arguably not the highlight of the day. That would be saved for later, when he was called into bat with Sri Lanka teetering on 161/7, and last remaining recognised batsman Dickwella on the other side of the crease.  The pair would go on to put on an unbeaten 66-run partnership for the eighth, which would bring Sri Lanka to within 22 runs of New Zealand’s total at the end of play. Lakmal would score 28 of those runs, facing 79 balls in the process – the most he has faced ever in single Test innings. “So many people have told me that I can bat, but that I don’t apply myself to. So during the last one and half years, I was working with the batting coach and a lot in the nets, so now I know I can give the team something even better with the bat.”

Now 32, Lakmal is now also an elder statesman, ushering in Sri Lanka’s new young brigade of fast-bowling talent. But in terms of highlighting the benefits of hard work and perseverance, for any budding fast bowlers looking on, Lakmal’s tireless efforts should be required viewing.



Pix by Chamila Karunarathn