What is always impressive, especially in Test match cricket is the extent to which a young talent goes to rescue his side. This usually makes for a comparing narrative because where it comes to competitive red ball cricket, the matters of victory and defeat can be decided by effort that either leads to triumph or turmoil. And either result depends on the sort of temerity that a talent is prepared to put for the cause of his side.
Because that is what practitioners of Test match cricket are expected to put forth.
Temerity.
It’s a word that’s often thrown around often lavishly but if there’s someone who truly epitomised it recently, then it was a cricketer who was challenged with overwhelming odds.
It appears very much so that a young cricketer who’s only just arrived in the highest annals of the sport has managed to not just curb India’s marching halt but prevented all of that on his own. Pretty much on his own!
His name is Sonal Dinusha and sticking to the wicket and displaying extraordinary grit- appears to come naturally to him.
In a game, where statistical outputs are but the order of the day, Sonal Dinusha changed the order of the day to stop India given a gallant draw at Colombo, for which the left hander was himself responsible for.
Truth be told, he faced no fewer than 650 deliveries in the entire series, 722 deliveries to be precise. But what makes for a grand effort is the very fact that he was able to strike three centuries in his last four innings.
To the misers who are often scant in their praise, it may seem like this was somewhere possible because there was no Jasprit Bumrah for India. But then they must be asked whether facing Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj is something which qualifies to be an underwhelming task?
What Sonal, the young still developing Cricketer in his nascent stage has done is that he has given Shubman Gill’s team no easy day.
It must not be forgotten that India arrived in Sri Lanka with only one singular objective and that was to destroy the hosts and white wash Sri Lanka so that they could avail the vital points to qualify further in rhe World Test Championship’s current cycle.
Hundreds in both ends of a test matches, indeed special, but then to have three in your last four, very recent innings is something rather commendable, especially when you are a new born in Test cricket.
It’s a sort of feat that you truly feel everyone will be happy about whether it’s Rahul Dravid or Kumar Sangakkara, Sachin Tendulkar and even Mahela Jayawardene. The kind of effort that will draw praise from
legends of such redoubtable repute.
More importantly, at a time where there is no Angelo Matthews anymore in the Sri Lankan set up with big guns like Nissanka recovering from injury, somebody like Sonal Dinusha truly coming into his own augurs well for a team that’s promising, but still bubbling with the hope that it’s best days lie ahead in the future.
So all of that said while the Sri Lankan team definitely ended up on the wrong side of the result having lost the series 1-0 to India they can draw a lot of heart from the fact that in Dinusha, there is somebody that points to a future marked with stability and a sort of positivity.
The left hander stationed at the lower order boasts of a compact technique with runs all sides of the park and doesn’t seem to lose confidence against spin or pace.
And while his unbeaten 133 had all the stoicism with the bat, it also produced some strokes of daring, especially against the noted left arm orthodox spinners India challenged him with. His two sixes late in the innings when the inevitable was clear to India that they would no longer castigate their hosts saw the red ball travel quite a country mile over long on and deep mid wicket.
A rather telling stat was reminded about by a Commentator in the game’s aftermath. It’s a fact that would have remained buried under sun if not told in the commentary box.
Despite being enforced the follow- on, Sri Lanka went on to salvage a draw at the back of Sonal’s valiant efforts. It was the only time in 9 occasions where India didn’t win a test despite inflicting the follow on.
The lion’s share of that credit now must go to Sonal Dinusha. All of 25 years!
Let that not be forgotten.
