The pitch was meant to be more batting-friendly than usual, and seemed so for a while, but then changed character and one team bore the brunt more than the other
Andrew Fidel Fernando03-Jul-2025At least two captains of Sri Lanka’s men’s white-ball team have said in recent years that they would really prefer it if this piece-of-work Khettarama pitch learned how to behave.The theory goes something like this. Where other top white-ball countries have rolled out flatter and flatter white-ball surfaces, sending totals into the stratosphere and bowling economy rates into neighbouring galaxies, the pitch Sri Lanka play most of their home matches on is stuck naughtily in the nineties. It is devious. It lets the ball dance evil little dances on it. And so often, it rises up mid-innings and chokes a chase. As per the theory, this means that Sri Lanka’s batters and bowlers do not develop the skills required to compete on the kinds of surfaces most modern white-ball cricket is played on.Ahead of this match, Charith Asalanka had said he felt “this pitch [at Khettarama] will be a bit more batting-friendly than usual”. He had said it with the conviction of a man who was aware of directions being passed on from the team to the curator, on what kind of surface that curator should prepare.Related
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Having perhaps been assured that this was not going to be yet another spin-friendly track, Asalanka even picked three seamers in his XI, choosing to give Milan Rathnayake a debut, over choosing left-arm spin-bowling allrounder Dunith Wellalage, who is already bit of a Khettarama favourite, averaging 16.60 with the ball at this venue.For 66.2 overs of this match, it felt like Asalanka was right. This a “more-batting-friendly-than-usual Khettarama deck”. Batters were hitting through the line. Errors of length were brutally punished. Asalanka himself scored a fighting 106 off 123 for Sri Lanka, which was no real surprise – he been quietly making himself one of the best ODI middle-order batters in the world. But Sri Lanka had lost 3 for 29 to start with, lost seven of their wickets to seam bowling, never really had a big partnership, and eventually their 244 all out seemed 30 runs light, especially when Tanzid Hasan and Najmul Hossain Shanto were bounding through those early overs.But old habits die hard, we can never truly deny our deepest selves, there is comfort in the familiar, and joy in good stories retold.Maybe the pitch suddenly reclaimed some of its viciousness. Maybe Sri Lanka reclaimed a little of its old spin-bowling mayhem. Maybe Bangladesh dived deep and found one of their old collapses against Sri Lanka. It’s possible all three happened. What we know for sure is that seven wickets were lost for five runs. And that never before in ODI history have wickets No. 2 down to No. 8 fallen for fewer runs than this.On the frontlines of the spin-bowling mayhem argument, we have Kamindu Mendis. Kamindu is mainly a batter, so his taking 3 for 19 in an innings is unusual enough. But of course we are talking Sri Lankan spin bowling divorced from batting here, and even on that front, this is a mad cricketer. His first two wickets were with left-arm spin, which, as a left-handed batter, is his better finger-spin arm. But his third wicket – the lbw-ing of left-hand batter Taskin Ahmed – was a right-arm offspin dismissal.Kamindu Mendis is an utterly unique collaborator for Wanindu Hasaranga•AFP/Getty Images”Bowlers who can bowl with either arm are really valuable,” Wanindu Hasaranga, who took 4 for 10 – the best figures in the game – said. Hasaranga getting wickets at this venue is not altogether surprising. But Kamindu is an utterly unique collaborator at the other end. “When there’s a left-hand right-hand combination batting, he can spin the ball away from both of them. That’s really valuable. The spell he bowled made it easier for me too. Players like that are really valuable.”If dual-arm bowling becomes more common, Sri Lanka feels like the natural birthplace for such a cricketing evolution. In the last week, a dual-arm Test bowler – Tharindu Rathnayake – had taken wickets with both arms in a single innings too. Already this is normal behaviour in Sri Lanka, just as the carrom ball had found a home here, long before it became popular.And it has to be noted that Bangladesh’s batters were channeling the easy-beat Bangladesh sides of the 1990s too, with some awful batting. They were 99 for 1 at one point. Soon they were 105 for 7. No serious innings recovers from such a slide. It was history-making ineptitude.Bangladesh’s batting has showed resilience and strength against Sri Lanka in the past. Sri Lanka has showed a willingness to move on from spin-friendly tracks. But sometimes we get caught up in old behaviours. And suddenly, almost by accident, seven wickets have fallen for five runs.
